36

I just upgraded from 20.04 to 22.04 on a Lenovo IdeaPad 3 15ITL05. I wanted to use the new screen recorder, so I pressed PrtSc, which brought up the normal options. The screenshot function seems to be working fine, but when I choose to record, the symbol at the top of the screen pops up for a split second, then vanishes and nothing happens. Any ideas about how to fix this??

christian_js
  • 546
  • 2
    In my case it wasn't working because I had removed "Videos" from ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs and /etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults . – macramole Jun 27 '22 at 02:29
  • I'm just going to install 20.04 again and use it. As I'm a newbie at this and can't do anything without my Simple screen recorder. It's my business and wish I had know ahead of time this would make it quit working. And no other one will launch either. – William Hensley Aug 14 '22 at 04:24
  • @WilliamHensley If you desperately need a screen recorder, I would highly recommend using OBS Studio. If not then simply open a terminal and enter the command sudo apt reinstall gstreamer1.0-pipewire. The screen recorder in 22.04 is greatly improved over the 20.04 version. – christian_js Aug 16 '22 at 16:54
  • In my case installing xdg-desktop-portal-gnome helped (source) – nocibambi Sep 02 '22 at 16:36
  • @christian_js you mean the Ubuntu's default screen recorder? That one doesn't record sound. – Karina Klinkevičiūtė Nov 02 '22 at 21:17
  • 1
    @KarinaKlinkevičiūtė I'm aware of that, but regardless, it wasn't working. – christian_js Nov 04 '22 at 17:07

3 Answers3

32

I have a few ideas. I used htop to view my running processes to figure out a little about the Screencast program.
Mine is here "usr/share/gnome-shell/org.gnome.Shell.Screencast" You can run the program and then check a few on your log files and look at the activity.

cd /var/log

The -f option for tails lets you watch whats happening. Or just use tail -n 20 syslog and look at the last 20 lines in the log file.

other ideas...Using different file manager? limited user account? Screencast folder missing? not a Gnome desktop or installed different one?

tail -f syslog

And see if you find anything interesting. Also check auth.log, kern.log, Xorg.1.log, ....

Mine created a folder in /home/userMe/Videos/Screencasts and all my Screencast show up there in WebM format.

Let us know what you figure out

Update: Known issue for upgrades:

Seems that gstreamer-1.0 isn't upgrading correctly and the fix:

cd ~/.cache
rm -rf gstreamer-1.0

or that might work

sudo apt reinstall gstreamer1.0-pipewire
Czar
  • 580
  • i too have the same issue & found below in syslog - Any comments? pc dbus-daemon[6329]: [session uid=1000 pid=6329] Activating service name='org.gnome.Shell.Screencast' requested by ':1.38' (uid=1000 pid=6494 comm="/usr/bin/gnome-shell " label="unconfined") pc dbus-daemon[6329]: [session uid=1000 pid=6329] Successfully activated service 'org.gnome.Shell.Screencast' JS LOG: Failed to create pipeline: Gst.ParseError: no element "pipewiresrc" pc gnome-shell[6494]: Error starting screencast pc gnome-shell[6494]: D-Bus client with active sessions vanished – Aravinth May 24 '22 at 05:26
  • 2
    Thanks Czar, it seems like gstreamer was the issue. I reinstalled it and the Screencast program works fine now. – christian_js May 24 '22 at 16:51
  • 2
    The removal command worked for me, thanks :) – Aravinth May 27 '22 at 17:17
  • 2
    deleting cached dir fixed it! – Alex Aug 20 '22 at 20:46
  • wfm. Here's the relevant Ubuntu bug report for anyone who wants to dive deeper: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-shell/+bug/1963264 – bmaddy Sep 20 '22 at 18:50
  • 1
    Ubuntu's default Screencast works well, unfortunatelly it doesn't record sound. I need to record my voice over the screen. – Karina Klinkevičiūtė Nov 02 '22 at 21:20
  • I really don't know how much time did it take to try to find a solution for this problem! Thanks a lot for your help! :) – Esraa Abdelmaksoud Feb 10 '23 at 22:35
11

As @Janghou specified, just removing the cache directory solved it:

rm -rf ~/.cache/gstreamer-1.0
vvvvv
  • 608
3

What worked for me was to run peek -b ffmpeg

Sharcoux
  • 163