[BUG] "An error occurred playing this saved recording"

[Martuss]

Steam Version: 1730853027
Windows 11
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060
Game ready driver version 566.03
Games this happened in: Black Mesa, Counter-Strike 2, Left 4 Dead
Other recording software used: none at the time of this bug happening

Looking at the background recording of my games, thumbnails and capture looks correct, so do timeline markers for achievements.
However, when playing the background recording, the "An error occurred playing this saved recording" message will appear on screen and video will not play.
This bug appears seemingly at random, some parts of a recording can be playable without issue while other parts of the same recording may be unplayable.
Hovering the unplayable parts of the recording in the timeline will still show image previews, so I'm guessing the actual recording could be in tact and the issue might be with the Steam media player.

Some additional information:
This bug was probably introduced on the Steam Recording official release on the 5th of November, or in the 6 weeks leading up to it - I can't narrow the exact update because I went some time without using this feature, and when I turned it back on on November 6th. this bug was new.

[StaticR]

I started having this issue just now.
I saved a bunch of clips, the first few of them worked but from that onward all clips and background recordings were broken. After restarting the game and trying to record again these were also broken.

[Ｆｅｌｔ]

This issue only occurs for my system when I'm recording manually. If I have continuous background recording enabled the saved recording can be viewed normally.

[ACE.PLOPOGAMOTA]

I have the same error, mine started when I changed the clips folder, it was originally on my ssd but I didn't want to damage it so I changed it to another disk and this started happening to me

[kitty1102kat]

I just had this issue playing and recording phasmophobia last night. I can see the playback when hovering but it will not play at all. Try to clip it and the clips won't play either.

[MorMorMori]

I have the same problem. Jumping to the beginning of the video doesn't help. When exporting it as mp4 and playing it using vlc it shows the video so it's something about the internal steam player.
Another observation of mine: I turned off HEVC coding in recording config window and it started working. Then I turned on HEVC coding and it worked for a couple of clips but then again it stopped working.
Is anybody working in Steam looking at this issue or they are all made redundant?

[MJMPlays]

well add me to the list of people having this error has occurred while trying to play recording
as it is right now I won't be using this software , as good as it is to record it's of no use if we can not watch/share it

[MJMPlays]

well they are not so much forth coming with solutions regarding this issue ;

-=-=-
Our development team is actively following these discussions and it's a great place to get this information in front of the people that are working on this feature.

Because we have provided all the information we have for your issue I'm closing this help request. If you have an unrelated issue please open a new help request and we will be happy to help.

Steam Support
-=-=-
thanks support for not supporting !!!!!

[Non-Employee]

I mentioned switching the folder, and I will say that folder I made on my HDD started giving me the error again. I moved the recording folder to my SSD, where all my games are, and so far all good. It makes me wonder if it's because the recording folder has to be on the same drive as the game, or maybe it has to be on an SSD? Or the same drive that steam itself is installed on?

[Snakester15]

How much are yalls letting steam save? i wonder if the files are just getting too big. i'm letting steam record 600 minutes, 60fps, high quality at 1440p which is almost 80gb of video. I can't remember the default but im pretty sure its way less than 10 hours, although i do have a friend with this same problem and i think he's using the default settings.

When i try to edit clips its about 50/50 if it works for me or not regardless of the game, or game location. so I don't think that's an issue. I do jump between several games and since the recorder doesn't just save an mp4 file or something per session i wonder if that causes issues?

[Afjiz]

I don't know if it's a fix, or just worked for me. But I found in the recording settings if I disable the H.265 encoder I went from not being able to playback clips at all to working seemingly fine.

[Martuss]

Цитата допису Afjiz:

I don't know if it's a fix, or just worked for me. But I found in the recording settings if I disable the H.265 encoder I went from not being able to playback clips at all to working seemingly fine.

I have tried this, made no difference on my machine

[Quinten Smooth]

have the exact same issue

[Huba]

bumping

[The LukeMan]

I had my recording time set to 120 min, lowering it to 90 fixed it for me.

[Quinten Smooth]

Цитата допису The LukeMan:

I had my recording time set to 120 min, lowering it to 90 fixed it for me.

im manually choosing when to record them and normally they are 10-20 minute short videos and without any particular pattern they just dont playback, sometimes it can me a 5 minute vid and sometime else a 20 minute one