Saved Program projector shows only gray when studio mode is off at startup

[TimPeterson]

Operating System Info

Windows 10

Other OS

No response

OBS Studio Version

27.0.1

OBS Studio Version (Other)

No response

OBS Studio Log URL

https://obsproject.com/logs/9aE6TAGBuSFm0y3o

OBS Studio Crash Log URL

No response

Expected Behavior

Fullscreen projector on Program should show an image on startup even if Studio Mode is disabled.

Current Behavior

Fullscreen projector on Program opens but shows gray on startup if Studio Mode is disabled on startup.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Enable "Save projectors on exit."
2. Enable studio mode.
3. Open a fullscreen projector on Program.
4. Disable studio mode. The projector continues to display the program video.
5. Close OBS and restart it.
6. Fullscreen projector opens, but displays gray instead of program video.

To work around this, you must close the projector, enable studio mode, and re-open the projector. Alternately, leave the nonfunctional projector open, enable studio mode, and restart OBS. If studio mode is enabled on startup, then the saved projector will start properly.

Anything else we should know?

No response

[WizardCM]

I cannot reproduce this on either 27.1.3 (latest supported) or the reported 27.0.1 on Windows 10.

[gabetz89]

TIm, Did you ever get this figured out? I am having the same exact issue. The gray screen in the back is the projector, If I close the projector and project again, then it works fine, but reopening obs with a saved projector always has a gray screen

[kq5m9]

Here's a little data point... If you go into Roaming > obs-studio > basic > scenes and edit your json and add a second identical projector within the list, you get two projectors: a gray one with a good one right above it.

IE: "saved_projectors":[{"alwaysOnTopOverridden":false,"geometry":"AdnQywADAAAAAAeHAAAAAAAADHgAAALIAAAHgAAAAAAAAAx/AAACzwAAAAEABAAABQAAAAeAAAAAAAAADH8AAALP","monitor":1,"type":2},{"alwaysOnTopOverridden":false,"geometry":"AdnQywADAAAAAAeHAAAAAAAADHgAAALIAAAHgAAAAAAAAAx/AAACzwAAAAEABAAABQAAAAeAAAAAAAAADH8AAALP","monitor":1,"type":2}]

Thanks, #tinodo [https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/144792/]

[gabetz89]

Here's a little data point... If you go into Roaming > obs-studio > basic > scenes and edit your json and add a second identical projector within the list, you get two projectors: a gray one with a good one right above it.

IE: "saved_projectors":[{"alwaysOnTopOverridden":false,"geometry":"AdnQywADAAAAAAeHAAAAAAAADHgAAALIAAAHgAAAAAAAAAx/AAACzwAAAAEABAAABQAAAAeAAAAAAAAADH8AAALP","monitor":1,"type":2},{"alwaysOnTopOverridden":false,"geometry":"AdnQywADAAAAAAeHAAAAAAAADHgAAALIAAAHgAAAAAAAAAx/AAACzwAAAAEABAAABQAAAAeAAAAAAAAADH8AAALP","monitor":1,"type":2}]

Thanks, #tinodo [https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/144792/]

That does work and is my current solution but it is more of a bandaid than a true solution

[TimPeterson]

When I first reported this it was only occurring in the specific scenario I mentioned, but in recent versions I've been having fullscreen projectors fail to restore on startup much more frequently, not based on the studio mode setting. Does anyone have any hints on what parts of the code might be a good place to start hunting for this bug?

[chinagreenelvis]

I'm having this same issue. Remembered fullscreen projector previews start out gray.

[RytoEX]

I cannot reproduce this in OBS Studio 29.0.0 Beta 1. A fullscreen projector is correctly restored with the current scene when re-opening OBS. Please retest in OBS Studio 28.1.2 (or newer).

[flaeri]

Works fine for me on 28.1.2

[kq5m9]

Still an issue with 28.1.2. The double projector is a valid work-around. With 28.1.2, the initial blank projector is no longer gray but black. I tried deleting the first (blank) projection and then restating OBS. Got a black projection as the result. If I delete that full screen projection and recreate it, it's fine. If I edit the json file to create 2 full screen projections, the first one is black and the second one is fine.

This is on a Win 10 machine with 2 monitors, one monitor is used for the full screen projection of the program. Changing the scene to be displayed makes no difference.

Also, from the reports of this issue that I've seen, many indicate that they're running 2 instances of OBS, one installed and one portable. I know that I am. That might have something to do with it. 🙂

[WizardCM]

I still cannot reproduce this on 29.0.0-beta2 on a single-GPU system. I'm not sure what more information could help in attempting to track this down.

[kq5m9]

Thank you for your attempts at assistance, WizardCM. I setup 2 instances of OBS on another computer to see if the issue was linked to using both an installed instance and a portable one. I could not reproduce the issue on the other system. 🤔

Tomorrow I'm going to save the scene info and see if I can reproduce it on the second machine using the same scenes. I'll also try removing and reinstalling both OBS instances on the first machine and see if it's still there afterward.

[kq5m9]

Transferring the scenes from the older system with the problem to the other system without the issue did not transfer the issue. I then uninstalled OBS on the system with the issue while keeping the settings and scenes (located in AppData\Roaming) untouched, edited the json file to remove the duplicate projection (previous workaround), and then reinstalled a fresh copy of OBS Studio 28.1.2. The issue no longer exists on that system. Thank you all for your kind assistance! 😎👍

[Vaerys-Dawn]

having this issue in 29.0.0, the dual projector setup still works, this is after a fresh reinstall of the application too, reset setting etc, no matter what whenever I restart my application (with save projectors on) it always shows a grey screen unless a second projector is also present. studio mode does not seem needed to get the program to display properly, only the presence of a second projector seems to be needed.

Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor 3.60 GHz Ram: 32.0GB

Windows Specifications: Edition Windows 10 Pro Version 21H2 OS build 19044.2486 Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.4190.0

https://obsproject.com/logs/IAVePlxZU5cOyMce

[RytoEX]

@Vaerys-Dawn Could you provide a screenshot of this? Does it also look like this one? What if you change the OBS theme?

@kq5m9 Is your new installation still free of this issue?

[kq5m9]

@RytoEX,

The older system is a production system; the newer system is my home system. After a few days, the issue returned on the production system and the json workaround was replaced to generate 2 full screen projections with the same destination and it was successful in mitigating the problem. On my home system, the issue has not manifested itself. I haven't had time to investigate further. 😐

[andteklin]

I am currently running OBS Studio 29.1.1 and I am using the workaround described above to prevent the fullscreen projectors from starting up gray. I set the file to read-only so that the fullscreen projectors will start up correctly each time, but that seems to mitigate any changes that have been made to OBS scenes/sources/docks. Hope devs can find a solution to this issue soon.

The issue is not associated with the use/unuse of studio mode.

[kq5m9]

I don't know if making the json file read-only is a useful option. As you've experienced, that would prevent most changes to configuration. It's been my experience that the system doesn't change the projection area of the json file if you've selected to preserve it.

I have noticed that, on occasion, I get 2 valid instances of the full screen projection instead of one being gray. This might suggest that what we are looking at is a race condition where the first projection is being created before the content has had a chance to propagate. Just a thought...

[tomholovis]

Just reporting that the issue is still present in V30.0.2