Webinar screen share - Audio not sharing

[BPLAV]

Just had a very strange and show-stopping bug in Zoom Webinar.

Summary: Screen sharing refused to share audio playback, even when "share audio" was absolutely checked.

Details: In practice session, checked screenshare to make sure tech was set. Played fullscreen video on second monitor through VLC. Shared full second monitor, not application. Zoom settings from the web portal included the new "Enable HD video for screen shared video." Both checkboxes from the screen share menu were checked - share audio and optimize for video clip. Everything worked fine, video looked and sounded good to the other panelists. We took a break for 10 minutes until we were ready to broadcast, and I ended the screenshare. After a 5 minute intro, I popped up screenshare, made sure boxes were checked, and started the video. We immediately started getting comments that nobody could hear audio. I checked the zoom share menu, and the little speaker icon that means "audio is being shared" was checked. I stopped share, double checked that boxes were correct, and re-shared. Still no audio.  Re-shared, but with "optimize for video clip." Still no audio. Stopped share, checked video player's audio settings and made sure the audio device was the same as what Zoom was using, reshared, still no audio. Also tried stopping the cloud recording in case that had something to do with the issue. At this point,in desperation, we just had to play the video through our speakers loudly, and let the unmuted microphone pick up the audio.

Anyone have ideas about why screen shared audio broke? Any other hidden menu settings that might allow one to set what audio source is being sent with shared content?

If it matters, zoom version is 5.10.4

I'll do more troubleshooting after this webinar is over and update this if I find any answers.

[Ray_Harwood · Accepted solution]

Hey, @BPLAV –

One thing to check – if you can. When sharing audio, I believe Zoom shares only the audio from the Default Desktop audio device.  If VLC audio is going though another device, or is muted or set to very low volume on the default, it might not be heard.  Check your Volume Mixer application (on Windows - not sure if there’s a similar app on Mac) to see these settings.

I have experienced this a number of times – confusion as to why some audio isn’t working,  getting frustrated even to the point of rebooting — only to remember that I was previously listening through headsets or something else earlier, and once I reset the app audio to the default System output, everything was fine. 

That might not solve your problem, but thought it was worth mentioning.

 Also, consider using the third tab on Screen Share with Share Video. I’ve found it works very well for most situations – once you try it and understand the controls. 

[BPLAV]

99% sure this was the fix - can't be entirely sure this was the issue but I couldn't recreate the problem any other way - appreciate the notes!