Screenshots randomly NOT saving

This has been an on and off issue for the last couple months. About 40% of the time when I hit the screenshot buttons on my PS3 controller (using SCPToolkit), NO screenshot is saved.

I was really bummed when I summoned Phoenix at the end of The Copied Factory while waiting for the slow pokes to roll on loot, got into first person view and took three screenshots of Phoenix. ONLY one of them saved, the other two did not.

The game made the camera sound effect all three times that I hit those buttons but ONLY one of them saved.

A couple weeks ago I was even more bummed when we were doing Suzaku Extreme and have five summoners with Phoenixes out during the phoenix phase. It was really cool to see nine phoenixes + Suzaku during battle—especially when someone made the funny comment "Needs more Phoenixes" so I took a screenshot, it made the camera sound effect but later that screenshot was NOT in the screenshots folder.

Googling 'FFXIV screenshots not working' ONLY brought up results regarding people getting a "screenshot failed" error message which I am NOT receiving. Plus all those results were from 2013.

Adding a negative operator '-failed' to the search only brought up a bug from January 2020 which was a conflict between AVG and FFXIV and/or Avast and FFXIV. I do not use either of those. I only use the built in Windows Security that comes with Windows 10. And FFXIV has been an exception to all types of scanning in Windows Security for ages now because of another issue back in November dealing with Avast or AVG and thought that it could happen with any security type.

So I added more negative operators to the Google search '-avast' '-AVG' but only got junk results.

There seems to be nothing regarding screenshots randomly not saving in recent times or without any security software other than the Windows one.

Does anybody know what the problem could be?

Good afternoon and thank you for posting in the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.


I apologize for the delay in our response to your concern. To solve the issue, please try the following:

- Navigate to ' Screenshots' located in ' My Documents' > 'My Games' > ' FINAL FANTASY XIV' and try moving any screen shots in this folder to a different location, If the folder has too many files, the game my not be able to write new files in this folder.

- Right-click the 'FINAL FANTASY XIV' folder located in 'My Games' and open the folder properties. Uncheck the box marked 'Read Only'. Apply the changes.

- Run the game as Administrator. You can do this right-clicking the game icon and select 'Run Administrator'.

- If you have programs installed that perform back-ups of your files. (IE. OneDrive), please check to make sure its not trying to access your screenshots folder while playing. You can adjust these settings by allowing exceptions for the folders.

Thank you for visiting the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums

Thank you for posting in the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.

Due to no response from the original poster, this thread will be moved to 'Closed Concerns.' If anyone is still having this particular problem, please create a new thread and we will assist you in any way we can.

Thank you for visiting the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.