Jitsi screen sharing not working

Symptoms

Which one you see points to the cause:

Fix

1. Allow screen recording for your browser

1. Click the screen share button again. Your browser asks what to share: a tab, a window or the entire screen. Pick one and confirm. Browsers ask every time; there is no permanent “allow”.
2. On a Mac, the operating system must also allow it. Open System Settings, Privacy & Security, Screen & System Audio Recording, and turn on your browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge). Then quit and reopen the browser and rejoin.
3. On Linux with Wayland, screen capture goes through PipeWire and the XDG desktop portal. Install pipewire and the portal package for your desktop (for example xdg-desktop-portal-gnome, xdg-desktop-portal-kde or xdg-desktop-portal-wlr). Firefox 84 and newer and Chromium 110 and newer use it without extra settings.
4. Reload the meeting page and try again.

The page must be loaded over https://. Browsers only offer screen capture on secure pages, so a server reached over plain HTTP cannot share screens at all.

2. The button is greyed out or missing

• “Screen sharing is blocked by the moderator”: a moderator turned off Allow non-moderators to share their screen. Raise your hand; the moderator can allow you from the participants list (Allow screen sharing) or turn the setting back on.
• No button at all on a desktop browser: the server administrator can choose which toolbar buttons appear. If desktop is left out of toolbarButtons in the server’s config.js, nobody sees the button. Ask the organizer or the server’s administrator.
• On a phone or tablet: screen sharing support in mobile browsers is limited. Install the Jitsi Meet app for Android or iOS, open the same meeting link, and use Start screen sharing in the app.

3. Jitsi embedded in another website

If a meeting works on the Jitsi site itself but screen sharing fails inside another product, the page that embeds Jitsi has to let the frame capture the screen. The official IFrame API (JitsiMeetExternalAPI) already includes display-capture in the frame’s permissions. A hand-written <iframe> must add it:

<iframe src="https://meet.example.com/MyRoom"
        allow="camera; microphone; display-capture; fullscreen; autoplay"></iframe>

Without display-capture the browser refuses screen capture inside the frame. If you build the integration, see embedding Jitsi with the IFrame API.

4. Others cannot hear the video you share

When you pick what to share, browsers that support it show a share audio option (wording varies by browser). Tick it before you confirm. If you did not, Jitsi shows “Couldn’t share system audio!” with the reason “Share audio box was not checked in the window selection screen.” Stop sharing and start again with the box ticked.

5. The share disappears or freezes for viewers

Jitsi turns off video it cannot deliver. When the connection of a viewer or of the person sharing is too slow or loses packets, viewers see “Video for (name) has been turned off to save bandwidth”, and the share can switch off and on. A Jitsi maintainer explains that below a point there is no way to send the video at all (jitsi-meet #17426, open).

• Check the connection quality indicator on the sharer’s and the viewer’s video tile.
• Close other uploads or video calls on the same connection, or move closer to the Wi-Fi access point.
• Share one window or tab instead of a large high-resolution screen.

If it happens to everyone in large meetings on your own server, that is a server capacity question; see server requirements and scaling the videobridge.

6. Sharing stops by itself

“Screen sharing stopped via system” means the operating system ended the capture. On a Mac this happens when you stop sharing from the macOS floating sharing toolbar. Jitsi’s own message adds that it may also be due to low disk space. Free some disk space and start sharing again from the Jitsi toolbar.

For server administrators

• Screen sharing is sent at a low frame rate by default: desktopSharingFrameRate defaults to a minimum and maximum of 5 frames per second. The comment in config.js warns that higher values make the resolution worse.
• screenShareSettings in config.js controls the browser’s capture picker, for example desktopSystemAudio (allow system audio, default include) and desktopPreferCurrentTab.
• Check that desktop is in toolbarButtons if you set a custom toolbar.

Verify

1. Join a test meeting from a second device or browser profile.
2. Start screen sharing and choose one window.
3. The second device should show the shared window within a few seconds, and your own toolbar button changes to stop sharing.
4. Play a short video with sound in a shared tab with the share audio box ticked; the second device should hear it.

If it still fails

• Try another current browser. Jitsi supports Chrome 72 and newer, Firefox 68 and newer, Safari 14 and newer and Edge 79 and newer, with best results on recent versions.
• Open the browser console (F12) and look for NotAllowedError when you click share. It means permission was refused by you, the browser, the operating system or the embedding page.
• If the share keeps turning off, a maintainer suggests checking the console for lines like Connection stats: bwe=... to see the estimated bandwidth at that moment.
• Test the same meeting on meet.jit.si. If it works there but not on your organization’s server, tell its administrator what you saw.

What we have not confirmed yet

• We have not tested every browser and operating system combination listed here. The steps come from Jitsi’s source code, Apple’s documentation, MDN and the Arch Linux wiki.
• Exact wording of the share audio option differs between browsers and versions.
• Which mobile browsers can share a screen today. Our advice is to use the app because support in mobile browsers is limited.

Sources

• Jitsi Meet interface text (“Screen sharing failed!”, “Screen sharing is blocked by the moderator”, “Couldn’t share system audio!”, “Screen sharing stopped via system”, “turned off to save bandwidth”), source code, checked 2026-10-11
• Jitsi Meet config.js (desktopSharingFrameRate, screenShareSettings, toolbarButtons), source code
• Jitsi IFrame API source (display-capture in the frame permissions), source code
• Jitsi Meet mobile screen sharing buttons (Android and iOS), source code
• jitsi-meet issue #17426: low bandwidth shared screen not shown, 2026-05-22 onward, open, maintainer comments
• Jitsi handbook: supported browsers, official doc
• Apple: control access to screen and system audio recording on Mac, official doc
• MDN: getDisplayMedia() (secure context, display-capture, NotAllowedError, limited availability), reference doc
• ArchWiki: XDG Desktop Portal (Wayland screen sharing, Firefox 84 and Chromium 110), community doc

Need a hand?

Screen sharing broken for everyone on your own Jitsi server? Contact our engineers with the browser, operating system and any console error. Our support plans cover servers you run yourself.