Participant Muted While Screen Sharing

[arlana-stone]

I am the host of a meeting, and when 1 particular participant shares his screen, it mutes him and grays out his audio button. I can "request to unmute" the participant but when he clicks the accept button, it doesn't unmute him. After he stops sharing his screen, he is unmuted and can start talking again.  

Notable troubleshooting details: 

• He can screen share and talk on all his other calls.
• Other participants in my calls can share and talk with no issues. 
• I've tried making him the host and the problem persists.  
• It seems to only happen when we are in calls together. He doesn't have issues with his other calls, and I don't have issues with my other calls. 

[sam2022]

I have the same issue when I zoom on the web browser. Once I start sharing my screen, the voice is muted and can not turn it on.

[arlana-stone]

Hi sam2022! I would suggest making sure your zoom is up to date or deleting and redownloading the program. Since it wasn't me that it was doing it to, I couldn't troubleshoot as much. But I think him updating his zoom program fixed the issue. 

[ReeceHart]

There's nothing to update with the browser interface. 

[ReeceHart]

Same issue on the web browser. Anyone have a workaround?

[raju1070]

I have the same issue. I am trying to find an answer too. Hope you found a solution. If you do please share

[choco_yuli]

can someone help - users get muted when sharing screen on the browser?

[kim4cres]

I have the same issue. Just happened to me again! I have the paid version. This is embarrassing and frustrating to end users when hosting meetings. It also looks unprofessional. How do I get this fixed? 

[jackelope]

I have several students this happens to, and the issue seems to be independent of machine (e.g., PC, iPad, Chromebook), when it does happen.  I am not sure why the software auto-mutes a presenter sharing their screen, but I have found most students can simply click on their microphone icon to unmute themselves.  If the icon remains completely grayed out, then definitely have the presenter check that they have the latest Zoom version and re-connect/re-share if needed.  Sometimes, the screen share initialization process fries certain capabilities - much like connecting audio headsets to a Zoom session or connecting a Bluetooth to a cell phone.  Initialization corrupted is hard to fix - just reconnect.

[Nellx]

I had this happen too, so embarrassing in professional meetings.  I needed to present progress on a new concept from my screen but I was not able to talk it through and my audio button was greyed out.  As soon as I stopped sharing my screen I was un muted. It was very frustrating and time wasting.

[CarlaA]

Hi everyone! Thank you for your contributions to this thread. I know this can be very frustrating and I am so sorry that this feature is not working as expected for you.

We have created an article that goes over some troubleshooting steps to take when this issue occurs: Troubleshooting muted audio when sharing screen. Please let me know if it helps!

Carla,
Zoom Community Team

[marknohr]

Hi Carla,

It's not that it doesn't work 'as expected'

It plain doesn't work
What would be more helpful is to admit that and give an indication as to when, if ever, Chromebook users will be able Play background music while using their microphone.

• Is there an open issue for the Zoom Developers to work against?
• If so, at what state is this issue?
• Can you share the issue # and/or put the folks here that are taking their time to report the issue on the notification list to notify them when the issue is resolved?
  
  Please realize that giving false or misleading answers only creates more work and frustration for the community looking for this baseline feature to work as we all try to find the magic configuration of modes and checkboxes that will make it work.
  
  

[Casey_Woo]

SOLUTION:

I noticed this being an issue for users specifically using Zoom web client. For us we are using Chromebooks for our employees. So they are running Zoom via the Chrome browser since you cannot install the standalone Zoom app on the Chromebook OS.

The solution ended up being to make sure the user does not select to share a "Chrome Tab." Instead they have to select either "Window" or "Entire Screen." If you choose "Entire Screen," then you have to also ensure that "Share system audio" is unchecked in the bottom left corner of the popup box before actually hitting the "Share" button. Or else it seems like the audio for the mic is overtaken.

The article that @CarlaA referenced leads you to believe that if you uncheck "Share tab audio" then that fixes the mic getting muted when sharing a "Chrome Tab" but that still didn't work for us. Nobody on their Chromebooks was able to unmute themselves while trying to share a tab, regardless if that checkbox was checked or not.

[marknohr]

Hi Casey,

This didn't work for us. While in a meeting we started playing a MP# audio file on the chromebook. Then hit share and selected entire screen unchecking the "share System Audio". While the microphone was still functional the playing MP3 audio was not broadcast to the group.

[Casey_Woo]

edit: updated with attached images

I see. This was a solution for us because our users who need to share their screens have no need to share audio from within their browser at the same time. Our only concern was making sure we could still hear them from their Chromebook's microphone input.

I'm hopeful that this is a bug, but I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up just being a limitation for when using the browser-based "web client" version of Zoom... that you cannot pass through both microphone audio as well as audio being played from within the same browser over to the other participants on the other side of the Zoom meeting.

One last thing that you can try, only because I haven't tested this scenario yet (but I wouldn't get my hopes up), is selecting "share window" instead of "share tab" or "share entire screen." Interestingly, this one option shows no checkbox for "sharing audio." The mic passthrough does still work in this mode. It's just that, for my purposes, it's easier to instruct our users to just share their entire screen. But perhaps the "share window" option might retain both audio streams while using the in-browser version of Zoom (as the presenter).