Help me with screen sharing on wayland

Guix
,
1
  • Can’t screen share on Discord (Flatpak) or record with OBS on Wayland (Guix System)

I’m extremely frustrated. I recently switched from Xmonad to Sway (Wayland) on Guix System, and now I cannot screen share on Discord (Flatpak) nor record my screen with OBS (Flatpak), even after installing all the required portal packages. I am already using PipeWire, so it’s not a missing service issue.

Environment

  • Distro: Guix System
  • Compositor: Sway (Wayland)
  • Discord: Flatpak
  • OBS Studio: Flatpak
  • Installed packages:
    #+BEGIN_SRC bash
    xdg-desktop-portal
    xdg-desktop-portal-gtk
    xdg-desktop-portal-wlr
    pipewire
    pipewire-pulse
    pipewire-media-session
    #+END_SRC
  • Using PipeWire for screen capture

Problem

  1. Discord (Flatpak):

    • When trying to share the screen, the screen/window selection either doesn’t appear or is just blank.
    • Flatpak permissions seem correct:
      #+BEGIN_SRC bash
      flatpak info --show-permissions com.discordapp.Discord
      #+END_SRC

  2. OBS (Flatpak):

    • Using Wayland capture sources (Screen Capture (PipeWire) / Window Capture (PipeWire)), nothing shows up or the screen is just black.

What I’ve tried

  • Installed all necessary portal packages via Guix:
    #+BEGIN_SRC bash
    guix install xdg-desktop-portal xdg-desktop-portal-gtk xdg-desktop-portal-wlr pipewire
    #+END_SRC
  • Restarted Sway session and Flatpak apps.
  • Verified that PipeWire and xdg-desktop-portal services are running:
    #+BEGIN_SRC bash
    ps aux | grep pipewire
    ps aux | grep xdg-desktop-portal
    #+END_SRC
  • Updated all Flatpak apps:
    #+BEGIN_SRC bash
    flatpak update
    #+END_SRC

Notes / Frustration

  • This never happened on X11 — everything worked perfectly before.
  • I feel like I traded stability for Wayland and now I can’t even screen share.
  • Seems like a known issue with PipeWire/xdg-desktop-portal on Wayland, especially with Sway or other wlroots-based compositors.

Question
Has anyone actually managed to get screen sharing on Discord Flatpak or OBS recording via PipeWire working on Wayland/Sway on Guix System? Any hidden configuration, patch, or magic incantation I’m missing here?

2

Yes, but every time someone mentions that removing X11 support is to early on the phoronix forums, a flame war starts :wink:

3

I had problems with xdg-desktop-portal on sway as well but this helped: [bug#73520] [PATCH 0/2] Potential fix for the latest xdg-desktop-portal

Not 100% which parts are actually required but these work for me:

Install xdg-desktop-portal and xdg-desktop-portal-wlr, have config file $HOME/.config/xdg-desktop-portal/sway-portals.conf:

[preferred]
org.freedesktop.impl.portal.Screenshot=wlr
org.freedesktop.impl.portal.ScreenCast=wlr

and run:

dbus-update-activation-environment XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=sway
dbus-update-activation-environment WAYLAND_DISPLAY
pkill xdg-desktop-portal

Last line is required if you have for example tried to share screen which starts xdg-desktop-portal.

Screen sharing can be tested here: gUM Test Page