Nothing to remember

[DmacMcgreg]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Install app
2. Start remembering
3. Do some things
4. Stop remembering
5. View timeline

It seems copying context is able to work.

Here is what search looks like:

[jasonjmcghee]

Did you build this yourself, or was it 0.13?

[DmacMcgreg]

0.1.13 from the releases

[jasonjmcghee]

Could I trouble you to try out this release?

https://github.com/jasonjmcghee/rem/releases/tag/v0.1.14

[DmacMcgreg]

Same issue. I purged all data also.

[DmacMcgreg]

Happy to help debug if needed, or to provide some logs.

[cparish312]

Hey @DmacMcgreg , if you click on "Show Me My Data" do the mp4 videos seem to be playable? They should just be sped up recordings of your screen.

[mkielo3]

Hello, I am having the same issue (on v 0.1.14). I noticed a few other things:

If I use an external monitor only:

• .mp4 files are created, but have 0 size
• toggle timeline is empty

If I use notebook monitor only:

• .mp4 files contain data and play as expected
• toggle timeline freezes my computer (but I can return to normal by pressing escape)

Very cool tool so I'm hoping this might help!

[mkielo3]

Ok this is a bit odd. After removing the external monitor, using Rem for a few minutes, and then plugging the external monitor back into the tool seems to be working as expected. My settings are:

[DmacMcgreg]

Also getting the 0kb videos Also using external monitor with laptop closed.

[cparish312]

Yeah so I added a bunch of features for external monitor support. I recommend using "always record window with mouse" and this also makes "only OCR region of active window" unusable unfortunately. Checkout #93 for more details and lmk if that resolves it!

[jasonjmcghee]

@cparish312 if this fixes it, I think we should prompt the user to address this or force this behavior if there's an external monitor, or they will have this experience

@mkielo3 - can you confirm- does timeline "freeze your computer", or is it just a full screen screenshot? (Try swiping with two fingers left or right)

[mkielo3]

Thanks for such fast replies! It seems like a few things going on:

• If you open timeline without any saved recordings it creates the appearance of freezing your computer. My guess it there is no image to display so the user simply sees their regular desktop.
• There doesn't seem to be a way to scroll through the timeline without a trackpad. My set up is: laptop closed + external monitor + keyboard + mouse -- in this case I can't seem to scroll through timeline?
• If I switch to using the laptop only, the timeline works as expected (with swipe to scroll)

[jasonjmcghee]

It should show the placeholder as seen above in this issue if there are no recordings 🤔

---

Seems like supporting the mouse wheel is a no-brainer.

Could also do arrow keys.

I'll log this as a separate issue.

[mkielo3]

Strange - I definitely didn't see the "nothing to remember" message. Possibly has to do with having multiple zero-byte mp4 files saved? In any case - things seem to be working now. Thanks again!

[DmacMcgreg]

@cparish312 I have both those selected and unfortunately it still doesn't work. Curiously when I purge my data, I still have data from a week ago.. Should I delete the db.sqlite file as well? seems it didn't get deleted.

[DmacMcgreg]

Deleted sqlite database and same deal, still 0 byte mp4 videos.

[cparish312]

Hmmm yeah not sure what is causing the 0 byte mp4s. The purge should purge everything including the db.sqlite file so that is very strange. Could you try: 1) Quitting rem 2) manually deleting everything in the data directory 3) Restarting rem with the "always record window with mouse"

There has been very limited testing of the external monitor functionality so appreciate the perseverance!

[cparish312]

@DmacMcgreg Oh sorry just saw that you already tried deleting it. The inability to use the purge functionality makes me think it could be a permissions issue.

[cparish312]

Some logs could be super helpful but unsure the best way to get them. See https://github.com/jasonjmcghee/rem/discussions/101#discussion-6757299

[mkielo3]

I did a bit more poking around here and hope this might be helpful. It seems like fresh installs need at least 1 recording with the laptop native display.

Case 1 (doesn't work)

Setup: external display attached, laptop closed. "Always record window with mouse" enabled. "Only OCR Region of active application" disabled.

1. Install REM
2. Begin recording
3. Saves a bunch of zero byte MP4s

Case 2 (does work)

Setup: Laptop open with no external display. "Always record window with mouse" enabled. "Only OCR Region of active application" disabled.

1. Install REM
2. Begin recording
3. Saves correct videos
4. Reattach external display, videos continue to save correctly

[cparish312]

Thank you for the testing! Not sure what is causing that, but I will try to replicate when I get a chance. @DmacMcgreg could you see if this resolves your issue.

[DmacMcgreg]

@mkielo3 looks like you are correct! I'm able to reproduce exactly as mentioned. I did indeed have my laptop closed the entire time.

Also would add on the side that the timeline aspect is quite jarring, since you cannot really notice you've entered a playback mode, or where you are on the timeline of that playback, but otherwise very glad that it's working!!

[cparish312]

Awesome! Yeah I totally agree, I still sometimes get confused and think my computer is frozen when I accidentally enter the timeline. I worked on https://github.com/jasonjmcghee/rem/issues/41 for the little bit but was unable to create a cleaner solution. One double solution could be displaying the timelines on the images.

[DmacMcgreg]

one of the better interfaces i've seen is that of ScreenMemory, which looks like this:

[jasonjmcghee]

The single most helpful thing you @DmacMcgreg and @mkielo3 could do here is set a breakpoint and step through and look for the failure.

One area I'm concerned about is https://github.com/jasonjmcghee/rem/blob/f4f68049a064557bddeb93753f82aa41af776b98/rem/remApp.swift#L97

That theoretically should use whatever is considered "main" but I'm suspicious...