Screenshot captures black image

[edsh...@gmail.com]

I have Moto G+ running Android 6.0.1, non-rooted. The screenshot block is capturing an image, but the image is totally black (screen not asleep).

Any ideas?

[edsh...@gmail.com]

Correction: I have a Moto G4+

Some background: In the "Developer Options", I have "Stay Awake" selected and phone plugged in. I have a time-lapse flow set up that has 2 blocks: A delay of 60 seconds and a Screen capture block. I have it looping infinitely.

It appears that sometimes the screen capture works properly, and other times it won't. For instance, out of 246 screen captures, only 43 were good. 203 were black. The distribution appears to be random.

[Henrik "The Developer" Lindqvist]

Is the screen always on?

[edsh...@gmail.com]

Yes. Screen always on, but dims.

[Henrik "The Developer" Lindqvist]

Android doesn't really support taking screenshots, without using root, so Automate has to use Screen cast to work around it.
Screen cast doesn't do an exact copy of the screen, it re-renders the screen content to a separate bitmap while hiding sensitive content etc..
It may not even work for non Android UI, such as games directly rendered through OpenGL.

Any idea of what may have been on screen for the empty screenshots?

[edward...@livetext.com]

The Uber driver app. Trying to make a time lapse of the surge in my area to identify best times to drive. I came up with the idea and passed it over to Harry at the rideshareguy.com and they implemented the idea, created a blog post and youtube video.  Nicely done: http://therideshareguy.com/how-to-create-an-uber-surge-map-using-time-lapse-video

Guess I'll see if I can root my phone next. Would Automate screencapture be able to take advantage of a rooted phone? Or, would I need to use another tool to take a time-lapse?

[Henrik "The Developer" Lindqvist]

Automate will not use the root method on Android 6+, however you can easily use the Shell command superuser block to execute:

screencap screenshot.png

[jakec...@gmail.com]

I am trying to do the same time lapse Uber surge map for the Madison area but am experiencing the same black screenshots randomly interspersed with usable images. Has anyone found a working solution for Android Moto G4?

Thanks!