The infamous 'Server taking screenshots' thing

[Kang]

A lot of online servers, when you try to connect to them, require permission 'for the server to take screenshots'. There has been some debate about it when the feature was introduced, I seem to recall it is considered a bit of an anti-cheat bit somehow, but frankly, that isn't what I want to get into right now.

Instead, quick question:
What does the server actually take a screenshot of?

Or more precisely:
Can any of the online server admins, who ever took a look at one of those, actually tell me what all they show? Is it solely the DCS window? Is it the screen that DCS is running on? Is it all the screens?

[HC_Official]

it would be good if we could get some info on this?

Does ED themselves even know I wonder

[MAXsenna]

20 hours ago, HC_Official said:

Does ED themselves even know I wonder

Could be!  

[Actium]

Being privacy minded and out of curiosity, I had a look at the WebGUI, which is used to create said screenshots. At first, the screenshot function seems defunct. Note the broken image icon that appeared after trying to take a screenshot via the camera button:

Took a closer look with the Web Developer Tools (F12). The HTTP GET request, which is supposed to retrieve the screenshot from the dedicated server, fails with Error 404 (Not Found). However, the URL http://127.0.0.1:8088/screenshots//screenshots/d7GSsJF1dg6hbrm looks wonky, judging from the double slash between the two occurrences of screenshot. Won't bother to file a bug report for that, as that seems to be a waste of time. UPDATE: Copied and pasted a bug report.
Change that to http://127.0.0.1:8088/screenshots/d7GSsJF1dg6hbrm and you'll get an actual screenshot, which appears to be limited to whatever is rendered by DCS itself. I disabled full-screen mode, put a bunch of windows on top of the DCS window, took a screenshot, and got this (lacks all the stacked windows):

Edited September 11 by Actium
Added bug report.

[Czar]

Back in the day (2014 ish) I always had the impression through either MP chat or forum that "server allowed to take screenshots" was a measure on the person reporting a problem being able to snap a screenshot for the server side to check for the issue and not an anti cheat solution.

In some situations it would cause server side performance issues if a person would spam the "print screen" button as the server is also receiving the shots on their end.

I can be inaccurate because this memory is as fuzzy as it gets. I haven't been a multiplayer power user for many years now.

Some interesting info from a quick google:

"Server admin here- it's just a screencap of the game itself. I don't really know why it's even a thing. "
"Most Multiplayer servers are taking screenshots from your aircraft in cool situations (e.g. sunset behind you or some stuff like that, dogfights and so on) and post them for example on their discord server for cool pictures. They ask you for permission to do that "

 

Of course, some enlightenment about this feature from ED would be appreciated.

Edited September 9 by Czar

[Kang]

Thank you for your insights and special thanks to Actium for having done the work to actually look into it. That answered my question. Yes, it does raise further questions, like... why? But lets not get carried away.

[Czar]

8 minutes ago, Kang said:

Thank you for your insights and special thanks to Actium for having done the work to actually look into it. That answered my question. Yes, it does raise further questions, like... why? But lets not get carried away.

It is a very old feature. I meant, probably LOMAC old, that precedes our current image sharing services.

[Kang]

On 9/9/2025 at 10:21 PM, Czar said:

It is a very old feature. I meant, probably LOMAC old, that precedes our current image sharing services.

It might be, really, but I remember it gained some popularity (or maybe even re-introduction) not all that long ago. Definitely in the DCS 2.x era. It's just confusing all around.