Issues with screen sharing

[vikigenius]

I am using BSPWM. But when I try to share screen using google meet on my Firefox. It gives two options:

1. Share entire screen
2. Share window

Share window does not show me windows in other workspaces at all. It only shows the windows in my current workspace.

Is there a way I can show windows from another dedicated screen sharing workspace ?

Sharing entire screen just causes my mouse pointer to freeze: similar to this issue it looks like: https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm/issues/1271

But I don't have focus_follows_pointer set and it is false by default so i don't think it's the same

[zjeffer]

Sharing entire screen just causes my mouse pointer to freeze

Do you mean the cursor doesn't move at all, or it can move but doesn't respond to clicks (like in the issue)?

Does screensharing work in chromium-based browsers or other non-browser programs?

[vikigenius]

The cursor actually freezes. Screensharing does seem to work more reliably in Chromium based browsers but I could reproduce it on chrome too but only rarely.

Firefox seems to reliably freeze when there are multiple people on the call and you try to share the entire screen.

[vikigenius]

Upon further testing, I can move the cursor on firefox when the screen freezes. But I can no longer switch windows or anything. So something definitely crashes.

I can reproduce this reliably when there are 3 or more people on the call in google meet

[zjeffer]

If you leave a video running in the background, does the video keep playing when it freezes like that?

[vikigenius]

By video do you mean something in the browser like Youtube, or some local media player like VLC ?

[zjeffer]

You should test both situations :)

[vikigenius]

Sure, I will do that it might take a few days since I have to do this when I can get 4-5 people together on a call :)

But what are we expecting here?

[zjeffer]

I think the video will keep playing, but will not be interactive with the mouse (maybe with the keyboard).

It's very strange that this happens with multiple people on a call. What calling software are you using for this?

Please also include the following logs when you can test it again:

• journalctl: run journalctl -b > journal.txt
• dmesg: dmesg > dmesg.txt
• the output of bspwm (when I start bspwm, I add > bspwm.log after the command to gather all errors)

Also check your running processes after it freezes, I expect a lot of bspc processes that don't stop running, similar to this: https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm/issues/1398

[hariseldon78]

i have the same behavior and can add some details:

• chrome can share screen perfectly
• i have three screens
• Firefox is open on screen 2
• when i start screen sharing in Firefox it asks me the permission and i select the screen 2
• at this point this happen:
  • no screen share panel appears in the google meet ui
  • the little floating window with the firefox icon and mic/cam/sharescreen buttons appears on screen 1
  • the mouse cursor becomes an X, the one used when overing on windowless desktop
  • the firefox window doesn't freeze, i see the camera, can hear, can speak... BUT:
  • the all screen 2 doesn't receive mouse clicks anymore; not in firefox, not the polybar and neither any other window
  • the other screens 1 and 3 works perfectly
  • nothing gets reported in the logs with journalctl
  • i can use the keyboard to move focus between windows, but the firefox window doesn't get focused
  • i have this function assigned in sxhkdrc and it works if i click on the screen 2, but the firefox window doesn't get focused until it's the last one (i may need to retry this, not 100% sure); but eventually it works and i can move it to another screen:

     super + {button8,button9}
	bspc node -d {next,prev}.local --follow

last but not least: if u start xkill and click anywhere on screen 2 it kills the window manager, as if there was no window under the cursor

(i'll try gatheryng bspwm log asap)

[zjeffer]

@hariseldon78 Is this the same issue as this: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/642607/302467 ?