Let and . Consider the map from the arrow term of the extension complex of quiver representations to that restricts its -component to and then takes the quotient in . This map is surjective: a map can be lifted to and extended from to .
Every coboundary is killed by this map, since for ,
It therefore induces a surjection
Both vector spaces in the final Hom functor are nonzero, so its dimension is positive. Hence . This is the kernel-cokernel obstruction to splitting a quiver extension and remains valid for loops and repeated arrows elsewhere in the quiver.