If you are trying to share your screen in Discord and everything works except for the video, the issue is usually connected with how Discord is capturing and rendering your display rather than the call itself. Because of this, there is no single universal fix. Follow along as this guide shows you how to solve the black screen issue when screen sharing something in Discord and restore your stream back to normal.

Takeaways:

  1. Black screen when screen sharing in Discord, sound and everything else is working normally.
  2. How do you fix black screen when screen sharing in Discord?

What's Causing Black Screen Issues When Screen Sharing in Discord

Screen sharing in Discord needs multiple layers working together for it to work. Discord must capture frames from source, process them through the GPU, encode the stream, and send it in real time to the viewer/s on the other end. Since Windows controls permissions and how applications interact with the graphics stack, if any part of this chain fails, Discord may run normally while the shared content does not render. The issue often appears when starting a stream, switching apps, or sharing games and browsers. It may also show up after a Discord update, a graphics driver change, or when another tool interferes with screen capture.

How to Fix Discord Black Screen When Screen Share or Stream Starts

Running Discord with amin rights allows it to capture content from apps that also run with admin rights.

  • Find the Discord shortcut or executable
  • Right click it and select Properties
  • Open the Compatibility tab
  • Enable Run this program as an administrator
  • Click Apply and OK
  • Launch Discord and try screen sharing again

Disable Latest Screen Capture Technology

Discord’s newer capture method isn't supported by some software so you can try the older sutff.

  • Open Discord
  • Click the gear icon next to your username
  • Go to Voice and Video
  • Scroll to Screen Sharing
  • Find Use our latest technology to capture your screen
  • Turn it off
  • Restart screen sharing

discord black screen when screen sharing solution

Turn Off Hardware Acceleration

Disabling hardware acceleration removes GPU related conflicts. Of all the steps in this guide I've generally had the must success with this option.

  • Open Discord
  • Click the gear icon
  • Go to Advanced
  • Find Hardware Acceleration
  • Turn it off
  • Confirm the restart
  • Test screen sharing again

Note: This might not be available in newer versions of Discord.

Clear Discord Cache

Corrupted cache files cause tons of random problems so it's a good idea to clear the cache as soon a problems start.

  • Press Win + R
  • Type %appdata% and press Enter
  • Open the Discord folder
  • Delete these folders:
  • Cache
  • Code Cache
  • GPUCache
  • Empty the Recycle Bin
  • Restart Discord

Update or Reinstall Discord

Since it's super easy, you might as well just uninstall and reinstall Discord again.

  • Check for updates in Discord
  • Install any available updates
  • Test screen sharing
  • If the issue continues, uninstall Discord
  • Remove leftover files from AppData
  • Download and install the latest version
  • Launch Discord and try again