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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
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4 Answers4

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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
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    What does one loose by running an Xorg session and not a Wayland session? – Masroor Oct 20 '17 at 17:18
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    @Masroor This 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
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    Interesting results :-) – sudodus Oct 20 '17 at 18:27
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    @pomsky No, the screenshot feature does not work once I switch back to Wayland. – Masroor Oct 21 '17 at 01:34
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    @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
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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
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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
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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
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