Troubleshooting black screen during screen sharing
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If you encounter a black screen during your screen sharing in a meeting, follow these steps to troubleshoot the issue.
Notes:
- If you are experiencing this issue on MacOS Big Sur, this is a known issue, that Apple is working to resolve. We recommend using a wireless connection or changing your network connection settings to TCP until the issue has been resolved.
- If you are encountering screen flickering while screen sharing, and are on a Windows device, follow troubleshooting steps for screen flicker when screen sharing.
Prerequisites for troubleshooting black screen during screen sharing
- Zoom desktop client
- Windows: 5.8.6 or higher
- Linux: 5.8.6 or higher
- NVIDIA Control Panel app
The black screen during screen sharing could be caused by a graphics card with automatic-graphics switching (such as an Nvidia card).
- In the Windows Control Panel, open Nvidia Control Panel.
- Click Manage 3D Settings.
- Click Program Settings under I would like to use the following 3D settings.
- Under Select a program to customize, add Cpthost.exe from the Zoom bin directory.
- Click Add.
- Find Cpthost.exe from the Zoom bin directory (located at C:/>Users>YOURUSERNAME>AppData>Roaming>Zoom>bin).
- Click Add Selected Program.
- Under Preferred Graphics Processor, select Integrated graphics
- Click Apply.
- Try screen sharing again with Zoom.
The share screen feature requires compositing. Follow these steps to install the third-party compositor, xcompmgr.
Install xcompmgr
Install xcompmgr using your Linux distro's package manager. If you have a graphical package manager (like Synaptics), search for xcompmgr in your package manger.
Alternatively, you can open the terminal on your Linux distro and run the relevant command:
Debian, Ubuntu, or Linux Mint
sudo apt install xcompmgr
openSUSE
zypper install xcompmgr
Fedora
dnf install xcompmgr
Arch Linux
See the Arch Linux wiki for instructions.
Configure xcompmgr
After installing, open the terminal and run this command:
xcompmgr -c -l0 -t0 -r0 -o.00
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