Pre-1.0 the creator streams in one instance and screen-captures it from
another. Nothing prevented a second instance - there is no single-instance
mutex and no port anywhere. What broke it was SHARED STATE, and two of the
collisions were hard failures rather than annoyances:
- the layout DB. The model is read-whole-scene / write-whole-scene, so two
instances saving different layouts clobber each other.
- the WebView2 user data folder. Chromium takes an exclusive lock on it, so
the second instance of the same exe does not start at all.
- the auth token store. A test instance would overwrite the real YouTube
sign-in with its own.
- startup.log, where two appenders interleave and a crash in either instance
becomes ambiguous.
Set YTLIVE_INSTANCE=<id> and the process gets a private root at
%APPDATA%\ytLlive\instances/<id>/ for those four. Recording folder and the
ffmpeg tools cache stay shared on purpose - the cache should be shared, and
the creator picks the record folder. Global hotkeys stay un-namespaced: if
both instances register the same one, Windows refusing the second is the
correct answer.
An id that is not letters/digits/dash/underscore is rejected and degrades to
the primary profile, so the variable can never walk out of the profile
directory or name a UNC path.
The entire implementation is inside #if DEBUG. A Release build compiles to
DataRoot => DefaultRoot and WebViewDataFolder => null, and the call sites are
unconditional so Release cannot drift by forgetting an #if. The harness lives
with the tests: InstanceIsolationTests covers the two-identities contract,
the primary-instance no-op, per-instance WebView folders, path-traversal
rejection, that the real output paths actually move with the profile, and a
source-level assertion that the #else arm IS production behaviour.
Verified against a real Release build: the InstanceVariable field is absent
from its metadata and no "instances" path segment survives, while DataRoot
and WebViewDataFolder are present in both configurations. Grepping for
YTLIVE_INSTANCE proves nothing - a const is inlined at compile time and
appears in neither build, which cost one wasted verification round.
Docs for this unit (the InstanceProfile paragraph in ai.md, the 1.0 gate in
TASKS.md, and the MyMistakes/HANDOFF entries) landed in the previous commit,
because they share those files with the branding-credit work.
The ~30Hz CapturePreviewAsync PNG poll capped real cadence at ~20Hz
(35–165ms full-HD encode+decode), so a 60fps widget still juddered at ~1/6
speed. Replaced polling with frame-driven capture of the composition
controller's root visual — the mechanism WebView2CompositionControl and
Flutter's webview_windows use (graphics_context.cc captures the root
surface_ visual via CreateGraphicsCaptureItemFromVisual; reference:
github.com/microsoft/Windows.UI.Composition.WinUI / flutter-internal
webview_windows). Frames now arrive at the renderer's own pace; capture
memory is epoch'd ring reuse + one crop-sized shared WriteableBitmap.
New Services/WebCaptureFrameSource.cs owns GraphicsCaptureItem + free-
threaded Direct3D11CaptureFramePool + session (Straight alpha readback,
per-frame FindContentBounds → CropBounds). WebView2Manager reworked around
per-session composition controllers + one UI-thread Compositor created via
the CoreMessaging CreateDispatcherQueueController P/Invoke (the 19041
projection lacks CreateOnCurrentThread); internal seam ctor
(Dispatcher, Func<string,IScreenCaptureSource>?) for hermetic tests.
CaptureScheduler.cs deleted; the three SetCaptureInterval cadence hooks
removed; InitWebView2() moved from MainWindow ctor to Loaded (a parent
HWND must exist for the composition controller); the hidden WebViewHostPanel
overlay deleted. TransparentBackgroundScript unchanged.
Tests: WebView2ManagerTests reworked — 4 control-size + scheduler tests
dropped, FindContentBounds tests moved to WebCaptureFrameSource, ONE
integration test (Frames_PublishCroppedPreview_And_CoalesceToLatest_CarryingCropBounds)
drives the seam with a FakeWebSource + background-STA DispatcherPump.
Suite 293/293, 0 warnings.
NOTE: composition path NOT yet verified on a device — the take is the
next step. Web work committed locally only (no push per standing rule).
Docs same-commit: ai.md Slice 14 + supersede marker on Slice 11, HANDOFF,
MyMistakes (CoreMessaging DQ + namespace-landmine recipe), TASK 17,
Controls/ViewModels/Services indexes.
The 15:34 take's box interior is the widget's OWN full-canvas opaque paint — a
black void with wide content strips at the top/bottom and a right-edge bar —
arriving AFTER the first-second blank-transparent dumps. A background-color-only
!important wipe (b4bba4b) can't touch it because CSS gradients/backdrops are
background-IMAGE, not background-color.
OBS's fix for this exact symptom is background-image:none (obsproject/obs-studio#6659:
"set the CSS for html and body to background: none !important"). Injection now wipes
background-image:none!important on html,body,html * alongside the color wipe; HTML
overlay art (<img>/DOM/CSS shapes) survives — that is browser-source semantics.
Also re-arms WidgetDumpRemaining=5 ~30s after nav so the next take dumps the real
document INSIDE the recording window (the previous dumps proved blank at +1s and
missed the later backdrop paint).
9/9 WebView2Manager tests, 0 warnings.
The real-widget dumps (12:54/13:50) proved the OLD inline
element.style.background='transparent' injection holds only while the page has
nothing to paint: the capture was alpha-transparent, yet the recording showed a
black opaque box over the whole element rect (1231,679 705x396) once the widget
connected and repainted a container background-COLOR — CapturePreviewAsync always
honors page CSS (MicrosoftEdge/WebView2Feedback specs/BackgroundColor.md), so any
page-painted background wins over DefaultBackgroundColor.
This is the OBS-solved class (all web-uri resources paint their own background):
browser sources use a Custom CSS override, and the decade-validated formula for
arbitrary pages is a pre-parse <style> with 'background-color: transparent
!important' — https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/translucent-transparent-browser-source.59549/
('body { background-color: rgba(0,0,0,0) !important }') plus the div-level variant
for stubborn widgets (woahtech.com OBS custom-CSS guide).
Injection is now an idempotent pre-parse style element wiping background-color on
html,body,html * with !important (outranks every page rule, runs before page parse
via AddScriptToExecuteOnDocumentCreatedAsync). Only background-COLOR is targeted —
background images and widget art survive. Regression test asserts the element-wide
!important form and that the losing inline form is gone.
9/9 WebView2Manager tests, 0 warnings.
The one-shot dump + alpha log was bound to the FIRST capture ever = the initial
about:blank placeholder (alpha=0, rgb=0, 5/5 sessions) — a blind instrument. The
pre-parse transparency injection (1a39b09) is intact but was NEVER verified
(MyMistakes '? VERIFY'), and the 2026-09-10 take still shows a black, opaque
block. Stop guessing: NavigationCompleted for a non-about:blank document now
arms WidgetDumpRemaining=5; the next 5 post-paint captures dump
%TEMP%\ytLive-web-<id>-w1..5.png + shared AlphaStats(min/max/mean/zero%) +
FindContentBounds to startup.log.
The stats line alone names the branch: zero%≈opaque ⇒ the injection did not hold
for this widget's CSS (fix: !important stylesheet / chroma-key); large zero% +
tight bounds ⇒ capture IS transparent and the black lives in the compositor
blend. No new test: WebView2 runtime is not instantiable in the suite and the
re-point is log-only; 8/8 WebView2 tests still pass.
The recording is 60fps but WebView2 capture was a blind 100ms DispatcherTimer = 10Hz;
each captured web frame repeated ~6x into the file caps web animation at the capture
rate, not the page's (user: 'the animation appears to be too slow').
- New CaptureScheduler (Services/CaptureScheduler.cs): per-session dispatcher timer
that DROPS a tick while a capture is in flight (latest-wins, never queues) — the
guard that makes a higher cadence safe: concurrent full-HD PNG CapturePreviewAsync
calls (~10-30ms each, slow per WebView2Feedback#20) would stack CPU and publish
stale-after-fresh. Effective cadence = max(interval, capture duration).
- Cadence: SetCaptureInterval(33) on record/stream start, (200) idle — applied via
MainViewModel.Streaming.Operations.cs.
- De-throttle the hidden page: shared CoreWebView2Environment created BEFORE
EnsureCoreWebView2Async with --disable-backgrounding-occluded-windows
--disable-renderer-backgrounding --disable-features=CalculateNativeWinOcclusion.
Off-screen WebView2 is a hidden page when the host window is unfocused/covered and
Chromium then parks rAF and clamps timers to ~1s (WebView2Feedback#1172/#3070,
Chrome-88 timer-throttling blog).
- Telemetry: first 30 captures per session log elapsed ms (PNG encode + decode) to
startup.log — that decides whether ~30Hz stays or drops to ~20Hz; the FramePump
drops frames (never time-lapses, slice 10) if UI-thread GC churn starves it.
- ONE test: CaptureScheduler_Drops_Ticks_While_Capture_InFlight_And_Resumes
(deterministic TCS-driven, no WebView2 runtime). Suite 290/291 — sole failure the
pre-existing compositor pixel test.
- Docs same-commit: ai.md slice 11, MyMistakes.md, HANDOFF.
References: https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/WebView2Feedback/issues/1172https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/WebView2Feedback/issues/3070https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/WebView2Feedback/issues/20https://developer.chrome.com/blog/timer-throttling-in-chrome-88
The widget page paints html/body opaque, so CapturePreviewAsync output had
zero alpha-0 margins — every take since bccdb48 built the crop on 'the
capture is transparent' and never verified it. WebView2 spec is explicit:
'WebView will always honor a webpage's background content' and
DefaultBackgroundColor only shows through pages with no background style
(MicrosoftEdge/WebView2Feedback specs/BackgroundColor.md). The late
ExecuteScriptAsync injection (NavStarting/NavCompleted) ran after page CSS
and lost the fight.
Fix via CoreWebView2.AddScriptToExecuteOnDocumentCreatedAsync — the
documented pre-parse hook ('before the HTML document has been parsed and
before any other script included by the HTML document is run'), the same
mechanism OBS user.css uses. Nav handlers kept as post-load re-assertion.
Restores the take-23/24 stride-correct crop path (my take-25 removal was
wrong — it regressed the bounding box into a solid black box).
Adds one-shot diagnostics: raw capture PNG -> %TEMP%/ytLive-web-<id>.png
plus alpha min/max/mean/%zero and FindContentBounds result in startup.log,
so the next run proves the capture is transparent instead of guessing.
Build 0 warnings, 289/289 tests pass. MyMistakes.md records the full chain.
take-19-2/take-20 'webcam black square under the web widget': the capture was
alpha-cropped (FindContentBounds) and that CROP was fed to the compositor, whose
UniformToFill zoomed the opaque content box to cover the whole element rect the
moment the widget drew any content (idle transparent page = full-frame crop = the
correct viewport, hence take-1-good/take-2-bad). OBS model verified: the page is a
fixed 1920x1080 canvas and the element rect is a viewport onto it — measure with the
alpha crop (preview/selection), hand the composite the FULL canvas on an 8-deep ring
+ Epoch (same identity discipline as camera/screen). Regression test:
Composite_FullCanvasWebSource_TransparentMarginsRevealWebcam (the reveal contract:
margin pixel = webcam, badge pixel = widget).
Roll-forward of today-slices 6fd1d9c onto the slice-8 base, two-loop hunk dropped.
Release counter (per-build GUID read as noise; +1 per commit from git rev-list,
baseline 241 -> #13, generated by GenerateBuildStamp; GUID demotes to startup.log).
Tests pinned to Label/#N >= 13; wordmark display test asserts the Label.
Flash fix (take 14 finding): consumer holds must never outlive depth x source
period — 4 slots at high refresh lap ~27ms vs a <=50ms compositor read, so a
recycled slot flashed its new frame over the lagged old one. All shared rings 4->8
(OBS/overlay precedent for ring discipline).
Camera producer now rotates an 8-deep ring + Epoch instead of a fresh ~3.7MB
array per device frame (110-220MB/s LOH churn); WebView2 capture reuses a canvas
scratch + 8-deep output ring + a reused WriteableBitmap instead of two fresh
arrays + a fresh bitmap per 10Hz tick. Paste cache stays identity-keyed (Epoch).
- FindContentBounds already trimmed the bitmap; the grid/box still rendered at the uncropped user
size, so Fill stretched the tight widget into a bigger frame = dead-between-content-and-border.
- ContentCanvasSize maps the crop rect to canvas units (1920/pixW per axis, DPI-correct) and the
preview event now carries (bitmap, canvasW, canvasH).
- OnWebView2PreviewBitmapChanged sets the element Width/Height to that size; the grid and the
SelectionOverlay (both bound to the element's Width/Height) now equal the widget exactly.
- IsPreviewDragging (set in MainWindow drag/resize) suppresses auto-fit mid-gesture.
- Tests 10/10 (alpha bounds, canvas-size mapping incl. DPI, control size); 0 warnings.
- FindContentBounds scans the Bgra32 capture for the bounding box of non-transparent pixels
(background is injected transparent, so alpha = widget extent). Crop to that rect + Stretch=Fill
maps the widget flush under the selection box: full-canvas widgets fall through to the full frame
(identical to the confirmed-good image); floating widgets get tight-fitted with no dead space.
- Removes QueryContentBoundsAsync + the JS script entirely — the DOM-union attempt (a5b9952) broke
rendering by measuring an unsettled layout on NavigationCompleted; alpha measurement is immune.
- 3 new unit tests: tight box, no-alpha no-crop, full-alpha no-crop. 7/7 pass, 0 warnings.
The wrapper-excluded content-union crop measured an unsettled layout on NavigationCompleted
(async fonts/images, load animations) and produced a broken/zoomed sliver — the image was gone.
Restoring the exact confirmed-good pipeline; the bounding-box dead-space problem stays open and
will not be touched without explicit approval.
- scrollWidth/scrollHeight returns the whole 1920x1080 canvas for widgets whose body/background
spans it, so the crop kept massive transparent margins and the content floated in the Fill box.
- ContentBoundsScript now unions every visible element's getBoundingClientRect, excluding elements
that span >=98% of the viewport (bodies, full-canvas background layers); full-bleed widgets fall
back to the full rect. Crop taken AT the rect's top-left (l,t) — content pins to bitmap (0,0).
- Web Image explicitly Margin=0 + Left/Top alignment so the frame and widget coincide at the origin.
- Canvas-size render untouched.
- ContentBoundsScript back to scrollWidth/scrollHeight extents, kept as a real JS object
(the JSON.stringify double-encode bug that silently disabled the crop stays fixed).
- Crop again from (0,0), no X/Y offset. The union-of-elements approach (582d1f4) created an
all-sides gap by including invisible full-canvas wrappers; revert to the proven code.
- QueryContentBoundsAsync now returns a real JS object (not JSON.stringify — ExecuteScriptAsync
double-encodes strings, which silently killed the old crop) and measures the union of every
visible body element's getBoundingClientRect: the widget's actual rect, top-left offset included.
- CaptureFrame crops AT that offset (x,y) instead of from (0,0), so the widget anchors at origin
and the box is flush on right/bottom. Fill maps the frame flush under the box.
Bundle exception (2026-08-27): this lands prior-session work plus today's
transparency fix as one commit per creator instruction.
WebView2Manager (new): off-screen WebView2 control parked at -5000/-5000 in
the window's visual tree, captures via CapturePreviewAsync every 100 ms into
a BGRA8 VideoFrame. Source Width/Height sync to the control via
PropertyChanged. JS transparent-background injection runs on every
NavigationStarting/NavigationCompleted so the page's own CSS does not paint
white over the capture.
Transparency fix: DefaultBackgroundColor = System.Drawing.Color.Transparent
set on the WPF control before EnsureCoreWebView2Async. The WPF SDK doc says
the value is forwarded to the controller on init; the IDL (ICoreWebView2-
Controller2) confirms alpha=0 makes the capture alpha-preserving. The
prior-session 'CoreWebView2.BackgroundColor' path was the wrong property
name and has been replaced.
LayoutStore: WebUri column added (idempotent ALTER TABLE) and round-tripped
on save/load (schema v11).
MainViewModel: WebView2Manager constructed on Loaded; loaded web sources
re-registered; Source.WebUri PropertyChanged forwards to manager.
MainWindow: off-screen host Canvas added to visual tree.
Tests: 3 scale-sync + WebView2_DefaultBackgroundColor_Is_Transparent +
LayoutStorePersistenceTests.WebSource_WebUri_Persists. 234/236 pass
(2 pre-existing failures unchanged).
Scale bug (DPI/physical-pixel mismatch) still open.
gramps