diff --git a/tools/re-capture/bin/screenshot b/tools/re-capture/bin/screenshot
index abccb1dc..593df3b6 100755
--- a/tools/re-capture/bin/screenshot
+++ b/tools/re-capture/bin/screenshot
@@ -42,8 +42,17 @@ geo=$(xwininfo -root -tree 2>/dev/null \
       | grep '"xenia_canary"' \
       | grep -oE '[0-9]+x[0-9]+\+-?[0-9]+\+-?[0-9]+[[:space:]]+\+-?[0-9]+\+-?[0-9]+' \
       | awk '{ split($1, g, /[x+]/); a = g[1] * g[2];
-               if (a > best) { best = a; split($2, p, /\+/);
-                               out = g[1] "x" g[2] "+" p[2] "+" p[3] } }
+               # MIN_W: largest-by-area is not enough on its own. When the game
+               # window is momentarily absent from the tree (during a load or a
+               # mode switch) the only xenia_canary window left is the narrow
+               # helper, it wins by default, and the crop below produces a
+               # SLIVER. Measured 2026-08-26: a 10x710 grab that screen_id then
+               # classified as `menu`, so a nav guard passed on garbage and the
+               # run loaded the wrong stage. Ignore anything too narrow to be a
+               # game frame and fall through to the raw root grab instead.
+               if (g[1] >= 640 && a > best) {
+                                 best = a; split($2, p, /\+/);
+                                 out = g[1] "x" g[2] "+" p[2] "+" p[3] } }
              END { if (best) print out }')
 if [ -z "$geo" ]; then           # no window found — hand back the raw grab
   cp "$RAW" "$OUT"; echo "$OUT"; exit 0