Ubuntu 22.04 has a bug which is we can't share our screen on any platforms.
9 Answers
The issue with Ubuntu 22.04 is that it now uses a display feature called wayland by default, while in versions prior to 21.04 Ubuntu defaulted to using xorg as its display server. Wayland does not support screen sharing by default (until now, at least!).
To check which display system your Ubuntu is using, please enter this command
echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE
If the above command outputs wayland, your system is using wayland.
In order to use screen sharing, we have to disable wayland and enable xorg (x11). To do this,
Please go to this file
sudo nano /etc/gdm3/custom.conf
Uncomment this line.
WaylandEnable=false
Reboot your system.
Voila! You can share your screen. You can confirm this by re-entering this command.
echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE
Now it should display x11.
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8Lifesaver, thank you. I've had this issue ever since upgrading to 22.04, I'm still shocked this question barely has any upvotes. – gordon_freeman May 12 '22 at 06:43
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after I did that, the screen sharing is working but it's super slow – Kyaw Kyaw Soe Jun 02 '22 at 12:11
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5people using DisplayLink could have problems because of x11 compatibility (using 2 displays through a docking station, for example) – rogelio Jun 09 '22 at 20:45
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6The minimum qualification for using Ubuntu should be to be a stackexchange user lol. This is really bad practice they break functionality in a stable upgrade. – ahron Aug 16 '22 at 11:32
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this solution diables all swipe gestures – DBencz Aug 18 '22 at 10:00
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No it's not. Everything will work just like Ubuntu 20.04 – Arun Raja Aug 18 '22 at 11:57
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14this gets you working with thirty year old tech, a more modern solution: see [next answer](https://askubuntu.com/a/1421314/139044) (enabling chrome pipewire support) – bernstein Aug 23 '22 at 16:46
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3I think the author of this answer should **warn** people that other issues can be compromised by downgrading to Xorg, such as [this case](https://askubuntu.com/q/1414283/980324), for example. – Camilo Febres Aug 24 '22 at 05:00
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10How could Wayland be shipped in a LTS with such a big problem? – nulll Sep 15 '22 at 13:53
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This also worked for me. On X11 now and everything is working as supposed to. I guess it will take another 15 years for them to sort this Wayland bs out ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ – Jorge Campos Oct 04 '22 at 22:29
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1So, there is no disadvantage of using X11 instead of Wayland? – Agnishom Chattopadhyay Oct 18 '22 at 22:06
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1Then my second monitor turn into black screen after reboot... – Nicolas Dec 28 '22 at 14:35
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1problem with x11 I have: touch screen not working properly, any dialog window has no focus -> which is super anoying. This shouldn't be accepted answer. – Dutch77 Mar 08 '23 at 08:27
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This should not be the accepted answer. As others have said, while downgrading _might indeed help the problem_, I just don't feel like downgrading is the _right_ solution. – Mike Williamson Mar 08 '23 at 13:04
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2@gordon_freeman Once you select your user in the login screen, a cog-like button appears in the lower right corner. Clicking on it let's you select "Ubuntu on Xorg" vs "Ubuntu" (which defaults to Wayland). It will remember this preferences for your user. – Tulains Córdova Mar 08 '23 at 15:22
Only works for web browser
Go to chrome://flags/#enable-webrtc-pipewire-capturer using the address bar of your browser.
Click the drop down menu, and click Enabled.
Finally Restart the browser
This will enable the browser to prompt screenshare access
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2It worked perfectly for me and without the need of switching to Xorg. – Camilo Febres Aug 24 '22 at 04:32
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3Actually, it doesn't need to reboot the system, just restart the chrome. – Muhammad Dyas Yaskur Sep 09 '22 at 01:56
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@MuhammadDyasYaskur thanks for the suggestion will update – Jatin Krishna Habibkar Sep 09 '22 at 11:55
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1This doesn't work for me using Chrome, Teams and Ubuntu 22.04 with Wayland and who know what other components are relevant to this – Hakaishin Sep 28 '22 at 09:47
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This solution is bettern then activating X11 because X11 can cause other problems such as mouse freez on newer laptops with amd ryzen. – newandlost Feb 07 '23 at 10:32
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1This didn't work for me, I had to disable Wayland in favour of X11 as the accepted answer suggests. – Caumons May 02 '23 at 08:22
For Slack in-app screen recording and screen sharing:
- Quit the Slack app completely (use
Quitfrom the tray icon). - In the terminal:
slack --enable-features=WebRTCPipeWireCapturer
- See if it works.
- (Optional) Persist the change across reboots:
gedit admin:///usr/share/applications/slack.desktop
In text editor find a line that says:
Exec=/usr/bin/slack %U
Change the line to say:
Exec=/usr/bin/slack --enable-features=WebRTCPipeWireCapturer %U
That's it. Tested on Ubuntu 22.04LTS and:
$ slack --version
4.27.156
$ echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE
wayland
$ dpkg -l | grep -i pipewire
ii libpipewire-0.3-0:amd64 0.3.48-1ubuntu1 amd64 libraries for the PipeWire multimedia server
ii libpipewire-0.3-common 0.3.48-1ubuntu1 all libraries for the PipeWire multimedia server - common files
ii libpipewire-0.3-modules:amd64 0.3.48-1ubuntu1 amd64 libraries for the PipeWire multimedia server - modules
ii libspa-0.2-modules:amd64 0.3.48-1ubuntu1 amd64 libraries for the PipeWire multimedia server Simple Plugin API - modules
ii pipewire:amd64 0.3.48-1ubuntu1 amd64 audio and video processing engine multimedia server
ii pipewire-bin 0.3.48-1ubuntu1 amd64 PipeWire multimedia server - programs
ii pipewire-media-session 0.4.1-2ubuntu1 amd64 example session manager for PipeWire
Source: https://github.com/flathub/com.slack.Slack/issues/101#issuecomment-808430530
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Since Wayland is not supporting screen share by default, there is already an experimental way with chrome browser.
First you need to export the metadata API from the pipewire media sessions.
sudo mkdir -p /etc/pipewire/media-session.d/
sudo cp /usr/share/pipewire/media-session.d/media-session.conf /etc/pipewire/media-session.d/
sudo sed -i 's/#metadata/metadata/g' /etc/pipewire/media-session.d/media-session.conf
At chrome experimental features enable the WebRTC PipeWire support
chrome://flags/#enable-webrtc-pipewire-capturer
Restart the browser and now you can share your screen.
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I tried the global.context.unsafe_mode=true solution, but Google Meet was still showing black screens, so didn't test it any further.
What worked for me was switching to X11/Xorg, which I did by
- logging off
- clicking gear icon at bottom right
- selecting "Ubuntu on Xorg"
- logging back in
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Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please [edit] to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-answer). – Community May 31 '22 at 19:49
As mentioned this is a Security Feature of Wayland. You can either use XOrg or disable the save mode of Wayland by doing:
- Press
Alt+F2 - Type
lgand press enter - Disable save mode by typing
global.context.unsafe_mode=trueand enter
This will work till you reboot/log out. I wrote a small Gnome Extension which does can disable the safe mode on demand. See https://github.com/julianpollmann/zoom-wayland-gnome-extension
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I changed graphic drivers (in additional drivers menu) from xorg-server to Nvidia proprietary. It worked for me.
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Replacing the Nvidia Nouveau driver with the proprietary one did the trick. – Sergey May 17 '23 at 15:32
Now the screen sharing in Wayland is available with the zoom client for Ubuntu.
Check the release notes in 5.11.0 (3540) release.
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Still not working. I'm on 5.12 and it is still broken. Changing to x11 was the only thing that worked. – Jorge Campos Oct 04 '22 at 22:38
I was resolved by going to chrome://flags/#enable-webrtc-pipewire-capturer and changing the value from Default to Enabled.
then
Search for the file.conf in /etc/gdm3/ in my case, Ubuntu 20, it's custom.conf
sudo nano /etc/gdm3/custom.conf
uncomment the line
#WaylandEnable=false to be WaylandEnable=false
then reboot
"uncommenting that line will use the Xorg display manager instead of Wayland "
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Please do not copy and paste identical answers to different questions on AU. The system has detected this *exact* answer given to 3 slightly different questions. – andrew.46 Sep 19 '22 at 23:16
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Please do not copy and paste identical answers to different questions on AU. The system has detected this *exact* answer given to 3 slightly different questions. – andrew.46 Sep 19 '22 at 23:16
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