Quicktime / Screen Capture won't record screen

Macbook Air M2 (2021) + Ventura fully updated


Using Command + Shift + 5, or by opening Quicktime and selecting 'New Screen Recording' I get an error of 'Quicktime encountered an error while trying to record your screen, please use ScreenShot App instead'


When I use the keyboard shortcut to use the screenshot app, I hit the record button and the floating panel disappears and no recording starts.


I have tested in safe mode, and it works fine, so I'm looking for steps to identify whether there is a third party app that might be preventing this working, but I'm not sure where to start.


Thanks in advance of any suggestion.



Posted on Aug 22, 2023 1:39 AM

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Posted on Aug 22, 2023 9:44 AM


A few things I'll work through here, but I haven't had a chance to read through it all. I'm running Disk Inventory X to see if there's any quick wins on disk space, but I have ~40Gb free, I'd be surprised if that's blocking Quicktime / Screencapture from taking videos... but I'll do the space free up activity anyway.


If anyone sees any other low hanging fruit in this report that I should jump on, please let me know, I appreciate any advice or help offered.


Thanks in advance :)

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Question marked as Best reply

Aug 22, 2023 9:44 AM in response to jeffreythefrog


A few things I'll work through here, but I haven't had a chance to read through it all. I'm running Disk Inventory X to see if there's any quick wins on disk space, but I have ~40Gb free, I'd be surprised if that's blocking Quicktime / Screencapture from taking videos... but I'll do the space free up activity anyway.


If anyone sees any other low hanging fruit in this report that I should jump on, please let me know, I appreciate any advice or help offered.


Thanks in advance :)

Aug 22, 2023 5:38 AM in response to Tintin19_02

since it works properly in safe mode but not in normal mode, i'm thinking you should download and run the free version of EtreCheck so we can see if you have some software installed that is causing your issue. make sure you give "full disk access" to etrecheck. Learn how to use it by reading Using EtreCheck. if you need help interpreting the report, you can see how to post the report here by reading How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting Large Amounts of Text, i.e. an Etrecheck Report. and it automatically obscures sensitive things (like serial numbers) so you don't have to worry about sharing the report here.

Aug 22, 2023 9:54 AM in response to Tintin19_02

the thing I noticed would be surfshark. antivirus apps are not needed with macOS, and they often can cause issues within macOS while providing absolutely no protection or benefit. you should uninstall it using the developer's instructions.


I also noticed that your SSD write speed is very low for an apple silicon Mac. I'm unsure if this is because of surfshark. you will need someone else to look at your report, because I may be missing something else in the report.

Aug 22, 2023 10:38 AM in response to jeffreythefrog

You're a MFing genius! Of course. Surfshark are my VPN provider, but they've been pushing their Mac Virus protection on me. I've had Macs for over 20 years and never needed one, or wanted one and know that they're just not a thing on Mac, BUT one of my payment cards got leaked recently and I had malicious charges on my account, so I got suspicious and though 'what harm can it do to scan and check my laptop' - well, the answer to that question is that it could break Quicktime and your screen recording capabilities.


As soon as I read your reply I was 90% sure you were correct as it lines up time-wise to when it stopped working.


It is now fixed and I would like to say thank you very very much for leading me through EtreCheck and picking that out of the report.


I'd buy you a beer or coffee for your help if I could..... can I?


Thanks @Jeffreythefrog you've saved me countless hours of investigation and troubleshooting. I can do my screenrecordings again now without needing to pay for a third party tool


Cheers and have a great day.


Joel

Quicktime / Screen Capture won't record screen

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