22

After upgrading to Ubuntu 17.10 I noticed some of my screencasting applications are not working, for example screencasting tools like SimpleScreenRecorder and vokoscreen. (link)

Also I noticed features like screenshot from GIMP is not working properly, producing blank screenshots (link). Shutter too is producing glitchy screenshots (link).

Screen-sharing option on Skype is also not working (link).

The issue occurs sometimes on later Ubuntu releases too.

Why is this happening and how do I fix this?

pomsky
  • 67,112
  • 21
  • 233
  • 243

4 Answers4

23

Ubuntu 17.10 by default lets users log in to a GNOME environment on a Wayland session. You may check whether you're logged into a Wayland session instead of an Xorg (X11) session by running the following command in Terminal:

echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE

Applications which are not compatible with Wayland yet run under a XWayland compatibility layer. But advanced applications, which depend on and/or control X11 server "too much" (screen-capturing/recording etc.), might fail to run in a Wayland session.

As a workaround you may switch back to an Xorg session.

pomsky
  • 67,112
  • 21
  • 233
  • 243
  • 1
    What does one loose by running an Xorg session and not a Wayland session? – Masroor Oct 20 '17 at 17:18
  • 1
    @Masroor [This](https://askubuntu.com/questions/11537/why-is-wayland-better) is a very good read. tl;dr: X is a legacy technology with many flaws and holes, but then again Wayland is not that much supported. – pomsky Oct 20 '17 at 17:24
  • 1
    Interesting results :-) – sudodus Oct 20 '17 at 18:27
  • 2
    @pomsky No, the screenshot feature does not work once I switch back to Wayland. – Masroor Oct 21 '17 at 01:34
  • 3
    @Masroor If you have a hidpi display, then Wayland is a much better choice. In general Wayland handles hidpi displays in a much more smooth way, and only Wayland supports the scenario that one of your monitors is hidpi and the other one is not. On Xorg scaled/hidpi is _all in_ or _all out_. – Attila Fulop Oct 31 '17 at 08:45
  • This isn't a proper answer, it's only a work around for some. I've been running Xorg on Ubuntu 18.04 for quite some time and since a week ago more or less, suddenly the screenshot tool doesn't copy anything into the clipboard any more. I can't "switch back to Xorg" since I'm already running it. – LifeBoy Aug 30 '18 at 06:38
  • @LifeBoy Ask a new question, sounds like a completely separate issue. How are you trying to copy to clipboard anyway? – pomsky Aug 30 '18 at 06:41
  • @pomsky I'm doing exactly what this question describes. Press `ctrl shift prtsc` and get the crosshair pointer, select an area and click. Shutter sound is produced, but nothing ends up in the clipboard. – LifeBoy Aug 30 '18 at 06:45
  • @LifeBoy I don't see *where exactly in this question* this method is described. Anyway, how are confirming that *nothing ends up in the clipboard*? Where exactly are you trying to paste it?As I said before, different issue, consider asking a new question. Discussing in comments is *not* to right way to get solutions for your problem. Also tbh I cannot reproduce, screenshots getting copied to clipboard and I can paste in applications like GIMP without an issue. – pomsky Aug 30 '18 at 07:06
  • Using Wayland fixed OBS screen recording for me on 18.04 – Daniel Oct 18 '18 at 04:02
1

If you're trying to playback a video recorded using 'Kazam' and encoded using H.264, I'd recommend trying out different video playback applications. I noticed that some applications (specifically in my case, VLC) played back the audio fine but produced a black screen for the video. The default totem player seemed to playback the video fine, however.

Karthik
  • 11
  • 1
1

Try Green Recorder. It supports Wayland & Xorg and it will work with Ubuntu 17.10. For installation instructions please check this link

Open terminal and run all the below commands one by one

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fossproject/ppa
sudo apt update
sudo apt install green-recorder
green-recorder
cool
  • 53
  • 3
0

I am using this workaround in Wayland. (Ubuntu 18.04)

sleep 3s; gnome-screenshot -a -f /tmp/scr.png && \
xclip -selection clipboard -t image/png -i /tmp/scr.png
Andrey Arapov
  • 1