Screencast failed to start (Wayland)
Moving from gnome-screenshot#243
Original report by Dave McLaughlin:
Since the upgrade to GNOME 46, I’m unable to record my screen using the Screenshot app in the default Wayland session. Screenshots (still images) work fine, but when I try to record a video of my screen, it looks like it is recording for about 20 or 30 seconds and then a notification pops up that says “Screencast failed to start.” Sometimes, but not always, a video recording of my screen is created for the few seconds AFTER the “failed” notification appears.
If I log in to an X11 session, screencast recording works fine. I’m using OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, on a ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 11 with the built-in laptop screen, no external displays connected.
My additions:
On openSUSE Tumbleweed and using Wayland. In journal I have pipewire errors starting with: pw.context: params Spa:Enum:ParamId:EnumFormat: 0:0 Invalid argument (input format (no more input formats))
and ending with: pw.link: (49.0.0 -> 100.0.0) negotiating -> error (no more input formats) (configure-configure)
(lots of pw.context lines about properties in between.
Steps to reproduce:
- Press printscreen
- Select an area to record
- Select video
- Start recording
- Wait 20-30 seconds
Expected result: Recording works, like it did in GNOME 45.
Actual result: One gets the error mentioned in the description, and no recording is done.
I'm reading in release notes there's now h264 support, probably for compatibility with proprietary platforms that opt to not support non patent encumbered codecs to prevent competition. This lack of compatibility with some platforms has not been a topic for me (and I think at least VP8 is supported by ~everyone).
Could this error be related to that, that it's trying to use openh264 (the only available openSUSE h264 codec without 3rd party repositories) and failing? If that's the case, GNOME should really not use patent encumbered codecs in this case but prefer VP9/VP8 or whatever was used before, instead of failing.
Someone commented that on Arch installing gst-plugins-good helped, but that is already installed on my installation.