OBS Studio Window Capture Black Screen (wayland/pipewire)

[DaveM9108]

A common problem it seems. You can see the system info at the beginning of the included OBS log file. My capture card works fine and displays a preview correctly, but a pipewire window or screen capture just shows a black screen. It seems that xdg-desktop-portal is installed, along with the gtk and gnome backends. It looks like pipewire creates the stream without error and then pauses it for some reason also with no error. I may be overlooking some obvious thing, so any suggestions would be appreciated.I’m not very smart sometimes

19:44:47.348: Platform: Wayland
19:44:47.348: CPU Name: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core™ i5-12400F
19:44:47.348: CPU Speed: 2212.848MHz
19:44:47.349: Physical Cores: 6, Logical Cores: 12
19:44:47.349: Physical Memory: 15858MB Total, 4065MB Free
19:44:47.349: Kernel Version: Linux 6.1.1-1-MANJARO
19:44:47.349: Distribution: “Manjaro Linux” Unknown
19:44:47.349: Session Type: wayland
19:44:47.354: Qt Version: 6.4.1 (runtime), 6.4.1 (compiled)
19:44:47.354: Portable mode: false
19:44:47.378: OBS 28.1.2-2 (linux)
19:44:47.378: ---------------------------------
19:44:47.379: ---------------------------------
19:44:47.379: audio settings reset:
19:44:47.379: samples per sec: 48000
19:44:47.379: speakers: 2
19:44:47.379: max buffering: 960 milliseconds
19:44:47.379: buffering type: dynamically increasing
19:44:47.379: ---------------------------------
19:44:47.379: Initializing OpenGL…
19:44:47.379: Using EGL/Wayland
19:44:47.402: Initialized EGL 1.5
19:44:47.414: Loading up OpenGL on adapter Intel Mesa Intel(R) Arc™ A750 Graphics (DG2)
19:44:47.414: OpenGL loaded successfully, version 4.6 (Core Profile) Mesa 22.3.1, shading language 4.60
19:44:47.434: ---------------------------------
19:44:47.434: video settings reset:
19:44:47.434: base resolution: 1920x1080
19:44:47.434: output resolution: 1280x720
19:44:47.434: downscale filter: Bicubic
19:44:47.434: fps: 30/1
19:44:47.434: format: NV12
19:44:47.434: YUV mode: Rec. 709/Partial
19:44:47.434: NV12 texture support not available
19:44:47.434: P010 texture support not available
19:44:47.436: Audio monitoring device:
19:44:47.436: name: Default
19:44:47.436: id: default
19:44:47.436: ---------------------------------
19:44:47.440: Failed to load ‘en-US’ text for module: ‘decklink-captions.so’
19:44:47.444: Failed to load ‘en-US’ text for module: ‘decklink-output-ui.so’
19:44:47.447: A DeckLink iterator could not be created. The DeckLink drivers may not be installed
19:44:47.447: Failed to initialize module ‘decklink.so’
19:44:47.516: [pipewire] Available captures:
19:44:47.516: [pipewire] - Desktop capture
19:44:47.516: [pipewire] - Window capture
19:44:47.525: v4l2loopback not installed, virtual camera disabled
19:44:47.534: FFMPEG VAAPI supported
19:44:47.564: ---------------------------------
19:44:47.564: Loaded Modules:
19:44:47.564: text-freetype2.so
19:44:47.564: rtmp-services.so
19:44:47.564: obs-x264.so
19:44:47.564: obs-vst.so
19:44:47.564: obs-transitions.so
19:44:47.564: obs-outputs.so
19:44:47.564: obs-libfdk.so
19:44:47.564: obs-filters.so
19:44:47.564: obs-ffmpeg.so
19:44:47.564: linux-v4l2.so
19:44:47.564: linux-pulseaudio.so
19:44:47.564: linux-pipewire.so
19:44:47.564: linux-jack.so
19:44:47.564: linux-capture.so
19:44:47.564: linux-alsa.so
19:44:47.564: image-source.so
19:44:47.564: frontend-tools.so
19:44:47.564: decklink-output-ui.so
19:44:47.564: decklink-captions.so
19:44:47.564: ---------------------------------
19:44:47.564: ==== Startup complete ===============================================
19:44:47.571: All scene data cleared
19:44:47.571: ------------------------------------------------
19:44:47.573: pulse-input: Server name: ‘pulseaudio 16.1’
19:44:47.573: pulse-input: Audio format: s16le, 48000 Hz, 2 channels
19:44:47.573: pulse-input: Started recording from ‘alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3.analog-stereo.monitor’
19:44:47.574: pulse-am: Prevented feedback-loop in ‘alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3.analog-stereo.monitor’
19:44:47.574: pulse-input: Server name: ‘pulseaudio 16.1’
19:44:47.574: pulse-input: Audio format: s16le, 48000 Hz, 2 channels
19:44:47.574: pulse-input: Started recording from ‘alsa_input.usb-eEver_Live_Streaming_USB_Device_20000130041415-02.analog-stereo’
19:44:47.575: pulse-am: Server name: ‘pulseaudio 16.1’
19:44:47.575: pulse-am: Audio format: s16le, 48000 Hz, 2 channels
19:44:47.575: pulse-am: Started Monitoring in ‘alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3.analog-stereo.monitor’
19:44:47.575: v4l2-input: Start capture from /dev/video0
19:44:47.576: v4l2-input: Input: 0
19:44:48.126: adding 42 milliseconds of audio buffering, total audio buffering is now 42 milliseconds (source: Flint Audio In)
19:44:48.126:
19:44:49.305: v4l2-input: Resolution: 1920x1080
19:44:49.305: v4l2-input: Pixelformat: YUYV
19:44:49.305: v4l2-input: Linesize: 3840 Bytes
19:44:49.305: v4l2-input: Framerate: 60.00 fps
19:44:49.311: v4l2-input: /dev/video0: select timeout set to 83333 (5x frame periods)
19:44:49.312: Switched to scene ‘Steam Journey’
19:44:49.312: ------------------------------------------------
19:44:49.312: Loaded scenes:
19:44:49.312: - scene ‘Console Games’:
19:44:49.312: - source: ‘Flint 4KP’ (v4l2_input)
19:44:49.312: - source: ‘Flint Audio In’ (pulse_input_capture)
19:44:49.312: - monitoring: monitor and output
19:44:49.312: - scene ‘Steam Journey’:
19:44:49.312: - source: ‘Desktop Audio’ (pulse_output_capture)
19:44:49.312: - monitoring: monitor and output
19:44:49.312: ------------------------------------------------
19:45:27.766: PipeWire initialized
19:45:27.771: User added source ‘Window Capture (PipeWire)’ (pipewire-window-capture-source) to scene ‘Steam Journey’
19:45:27.997: [pipewire] Failed to create session, denied or cancelled by user
19:45:43.375: PipeWire initialized
19:45:43.383: [pipewire] Screencast session created
19:45:43.388: [pipewire] Asking for window
19:46:03.605: [pipewire] window selected, setting up screencast
19:46:03.610: [pipewire] Server version: 0.3.63
19:46:03.611: [pipewire] Library version: 0.3.63
19:46:03.611: [pipewire] Header version: 0.3.61
19:46:03.611: [pipewire] Created stream 0x563397c49d10
19:46:03.611: [pipewire] Stream 0x563397c49d10 state: “connecting” (error: none)
19:46:03.611: [pipewire] Playing stream 0x563397c49d10
19:46:03.611: [pipewire] Stream 0x563397c49d10 state: “paused” (error: none)

[DaveM9108]

Just a side note: When I installed OBS from the "Add/Remove Software"application, it would not start. There was a working icon for a few seconds then nothing. I found out that the qt6-wayland package was not installed and apparently OBS needed it to run. After that it started OK. Something to check if you have the same issue with new OBS install.

[DaveM9108]

Fixed! - It seems the pipewire-media-session.service is not installed by default, and needed when an application needs to share a window or screen. The screencast gets stuck in a paused state without this session manager or possibly wireplumber as an alternative. Installed the service, started it, and OBS is happy now. Hope this helps someone someday.