What to do to Fix Black Screen on Hangouts when Sharing Screens?
Google pushed several different updates aimed at improving the functionality of Hangouts with Google Chrome. If your browser is not updated with the latest patches, you should update it and see if the issue is resolved automatically. Another potential scenario that might cause this issue is bad locally cached data that Chrome ends up storing for Hangouts. In this case, the issue can be resolved by leaning Google Chrome’s cache and cookies from the GUI menu or by deleting the data manually via File Explorer. However, in some cases, the issue can also be caused by a corrupted Google Hangouts Extension. In this case, you should be able to get the issue resolved by reinstalling the extension and restarting your browser. Note: Here’s how to completely disable Google Hangouts.
Method 1: Updating Chrome to the latest version
For some affected users, this issue seems to only occur with outdated Chrome versions. Unless you’re purposely trying to maintain an older Google Chrome build, your first stop when attempting to fix this issue would be to ensure that you’re using the latest version of Google Chrome. Over these past months, Google has released several updates whose Changelogs included improvements and bug fixes for their Hangouts app. Here’s a quick guide on updating your Google Chrome version to the latest version: In case you’re still encountering the same problems, move down to the next potential fix below.
Method 2: Cleaning Chrome Cache and cookies
As it turns out, the Google Hangouts Screen is often caused by a bad temporary file that ends up being caused by your browser. IN most cases, a cookie or a web cache is identified as responsible for creating this Black Screen issue. To fix it, all you need to do is to delete the current Cache and cookies that your browser is currently storing. Here is a quick guide on clearing the cache and cookies from your Chrome browser in order to fix the Google Hangouts black screen issue: In case you already this and the issue is still ongoing, move down to the next potential fix below for other fixes that might help you fix the issue.
Method 3: Deleting temporary files in Temp
As it turns out, in some situations, simply clearing your Google Chrome browser cookies will not be enough. This happens due to the fact that Chrome has a tendency of storing a few temp files in %TEMP%..\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Local Storage. If this happens, clearing the cookies and cache will not be enough to resolve the issue. If this scenario is applicable, you should be able to fix the Google Hangouts Black Screen issue by deleting the entire Local Storage folder belonging to Google Chrome and restarting your computer. Here’s a quick guide on deleting the locally stored temporary files belonging to Google Chrome: Note: Here’s what to do in case your Windows 10 computer doesn’t allow you to delete temp file. In case the same issue is still persisting, move down to the next potential fix below.
Method 4: Reinstalling the Google Hangouts Extension
If you’re encountering this problem solely on Google Chrome (Hangouts app works fine on different browsers), chances are the extension powering Google Hangouts contains badly cached data that ends up causing the black screen issues when the user screen shares. In case this scenario is applicable, you should be able to fix this issue by reinstalling the Google Hangouts extension for Chrome and restarting the browser. Here is the step by step instructions on doing this on Google Chrome: In case the same issue is still occurring, move down to the next potential fix below.
Method 5: Using a different browser
If none of the methods above have allowed you to fix the issue and you don’t want to update your Chrome version (for various resources), you’re only chance of using Google Hangouts normally is to use a different browser. Keep in mind that although Hangouts and Chrome are developed by the same parent company, Hangouts will work on any browser (not just Chrome). Several affected users that were also encountering this issue have confirmed that they managed to fix this issue by using any of the other browsers below:
FirefoxOperaBrave
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