Player Monitor and Screenshots

Sometimes a chat line or a log entry is not enough, and you need to see what a player sees. MonoAdmin gives you two ways: the Player Monitor, which shows live screens side by side, and Screenshot, which captures one frame and keeps it in Files.

Both show what the player’s own game sends. That matters for how much weight you give them, and the last section of this page explains it.

What You Need

Requirement	Why
The Watch Player Screens permission	It opens the Player Monitor and starts streams. Moderators have it by default.
A plan with monitor slots	Each live screen takes one slot. See Plans and Limits.
Screen sharing switched on for your project	MonoAdmin can switch it off for a project. If it is off, the page says Screen Sharing Is Off and tells you to contact MonoAdmin support at hello@monoadmin.net.
A current browser	Live screens use WebRTC, which Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari offer. Otherwise the page says This Browser Can’t Play Streams.
A linked, online server whose resource can stream	Otherwise the page says the game server is offline or its resource cannot stream screens.
An online player whose game is connected to MonoAdmin	You can only watch players who are on the server right now.

If your plan has no monitor slots, the page says No Monitor Slots. For screenshots you need the Screenshot permission and a server that supports it; see Player Actions.

The Player Monitor

Open Player Monitor in the sidebar. The page is a grid of tiles, one per monitor slot your plan includes.

Slots Are Shared

Slots belong to the project, not to you. The badge at the top reads “N / M slots in use”, where M is the number of slots your plan includes, and counts every stream that every staff member has open, including your own in other tabs. When all slots are in use, the page says so and how many are outside this page. A slot frees up the moment a stream stops. A bigger plan has more slots.

Starting a Stream

You can start a stream in three places:

• From the monitor. On a free tile, search under Pick an online player to watch their screen here and press Watch. This needs your role to include View Players, because picking a player needs the player list. Without it, the monitor says so and you cannot pick a player there.
• From a profile. The Spectate tile on a player’s Overview tab opens the Player Monitor and starts that player in the first free slot. See Player Actions.
• From the map. With Watch Player Screens, opening a player’s card on the Server Map starts a stream by itself, using a slot while the card is open.

What a Tile Shows

State	Meaning
Starting	The game server is being asked to start the stream.
Connecting	Waiting for the player’s game to send the picture.
Live	The picture comes straight from the player’s game, as it happens. The tile says “Live since” and the time.
Ended	The stream is over and its slot is free. A line says why.
Unavailable	The stream could not start. A line says why.

If the picture does not arrive within 30 seconds, the tile gives up and says the player’s game did not send a picture. If the connection drops for a moment, the tile shows “Connection interrupted. Trying to recover…” and then picks up again.

Click a live tile to open it at full size. The full-size window has a Full Screen button.

Stopping

• Stop on a tile ends that stream. Stop All at the top ends every stream this page started.
• A stream also stops by itself when the player leaves the server or their game loses its connection to MonoAdmin, when you leave the page, when this browser tab stays in the background for more than a minute, or when the page loses its live connection to MonoAdmin.
• It stops too if screen sharing is switched off or your role loses Watch Player Screens while you are watching. The tile says so.

The one-minute rule exists so that a forgotten tab does not hold a slot that other staff need, and does not keep using the player’s upload bandwidth.

Other Staff’s Streams

Tiles in use by someone else show In Use by and the person’s name, who they are watching and since when. The project owner can stop anyone’s stream with Stop Stream, after a confirmation. Everyone else can stop only their own, including one they left running in another tab or window (In Use by You Elsewhere).

Grid Size

Grid size at the top sets how many screens sit side by side: Auto, 1, 2, 3 or 4. Auto picks for you. Your choice is remembered in this browser. On a phone the grid is always one column.

Limits

A single player’s game can stream to at most four viewers at the same moment. Starting a stream is recorded in Audit Logs with who watched whom, and counts as an action in Staff Activity and Scoring.

Screenshots

Screenshot on a player’s Overview tab captures the player’s screen right away.

1. Open the player’s profile and press Screenshot. The player must be online. A window opens and starts capturing.
2. Wait. It can take up to 30 seconds. If the game server does not confirm in time, the window says the screenshot may still arrive, and it updates by itself when it does.
3. The picture appears in the window, with the time it will be removed. Open Files takes you to it, and Take Another captures again.

The screenshot is saved to Files as a Screenshot with the player’s name, who took it and when. To see it you need View Files; without it, the window tells you the screenshot was saved but you cannot view it. Screenshots are removed after the number of days your plan keeps history, counted from when they were taken. Each one can be deleted earlier by someone with Delete Files.

Players can also attach a screenshot to a report they file in game; it lands in Files too. See Reports.

Retake Picture

Retake Picture is not a screenshot. It takes a new picture of the player’s character’s face for their profile picture. It needs the Screenshot permission and a server that supports it, and it is recorded in Audit Logs like any other action.

Evidence, Not Proof

A screenshot or a live stream shows what the player’s own game chose to send. MonoAdmin cannot see the player’s screen itself, and it cannot check that the picture is honest.

• A screenshot of a player on a modified game could show anything. Treat what it shows as evidence, and look for the same thing elsewhere: Server Logs, the Tracking tab, and what other players say.
• A missing or black screenshot is not proof of anything either. A capture fails rather than uploading a blank image, and the panel says when it could not be taken.
• Other readings on a profile, such as position and health, are compared with the server’s own. The live card marks them Unverified client when the two disagree and shows the server’s values.