How to fix streaming problems on Discord

Want to stream games and more on Discord but are running into problems? We’ll help you fix the most common problems.

Discord’s Screen Share feature can be a great way to hang out with friends. While the feature is intended for streaming games into a voice chat, you can also use it to stream movies, shows, and just about anything on your computer. However, as with any streaming service, there can be problems, usually with video or audio. We are here to help you fix it!

Why does Discord capture the wrong screen?

If you have multiple applications or monitors, Discord can often capture the wrong screen, especially if you’re trying to stream something that the chat service doesn’t recognize as a game. Luckily, directing Discord to the right place is an easy solution.

First, you want to share your screen on Discord. For more information on sharing your screen, see our detailed guide, but we’ll also briefly cover it below.

To start sharing your screen, go to a voice chat and select the Share Screen option. This option is located at the bottom of the voice channel and above your username and settings in the sidebar.

When you click the button, you’ll see a pop-up prompt with three main options – Applications, Screens, and Recording Devices – with a number of choices in each section.

Click on an option and you will be taken to the next screen which will give you some streaming options. The main option is to check the “Also share application audio” box. But you may also want to look at the streaming quality settings.

Once you’re done tweaking your settings, click “Go Live” and hopefully your stream will run without any issues.

When you’re playing a game that Discord recognizes, select “Stream Game Titles” in the sidebar and you’ll automatically be taken to the second screen of Screen Sharing Settings. Discord also doesn’t ask for audio as it automatically records the game’s audio.

If Discord is recording the wrong screen (and you didn’t accidentally select the wrong recording), it’s generally either because the application you wanted to stream didn’t appear in Discord’s list or because you can’t get Discord to do it to recognize them. The best thing to do is restart the application and Discord to see if you can register the application you want to stream.

However, if you can’t get Discord to recognize it, you can share your entire screen instead. Discord warns that audio may not be available, although you can usually get audio to stream by changing some audio settings (which we’ll discuss in more detail below).

Why is my stream recording black?

So you have Netflix turned on, streaming on Discord, and your friend’s voice says, “I can’t see anything!”, even though everything looks fine for you. This is an issue that can most commonly occur when you stream a show from a streaming service like Netflix or Hulu. There are several causes and solutions for this.

The first possible and most likely problem is that you have hardware acceleration enabled in Discord. This setting can often cause problems when you try to stream your screen – and the black screen occurs when your CPU can’t handle displaying the image.

To solve this problem, go to your Discord settings and then to the “Voice and Video” settings:

From there, scroll down until you see the “Hardware Acceleration” setting and turn it off.

You may need to restart the stream and Discord, but the streamed screen should display properly from then on.

Why can’t anyone hear my stream?

The final common problem you’ll encounter while streaming involves your audio, and unfortunately it can be the hardest to diagnose and fix. There are several ways to fix the problem.

First, let’s start with the simplest possible solution: repeating the screen sharing instructions. There is a possibility that the “Also share application audio” checkbox is unchecked. If not, you can simply check the box and the audio should work.

However, the more likely problem is that Discord’s input and output settings are incorrect. Even if you have fixed them before, Discord has a habit of resetting audio settings or switching to a different audio device without warning. To do this, you’ll need to go back to Discord’s “Voice and Video” settings.

At the top of these settings you will see your audio input and output settings.

By default, Discord has both settings as “Default,” which refers to what you have set as your main input and output audio devices in Windows. However, this does not always work as intended. I usually manually set these Discord settings as my main input and output, which you can see in the screenshot above. This makes audio settings less likely to fail due to changes in Windows audio settings and makes it easier to detect when Discord has changed your settings.

If you manually change the input and output settings and your viewers still can’t hear the sound, it may be due to the volume of the output devices. Check the device’s volume in Discord, in Windows’ audio settings, and even in the application or game’s audio players – although it stands to reason that you wouldn’t be able to hear it even if the output was muted somewhere. Maybe the volume is too low adjusted so that the viewer can hear them, but still loud enough for you to hear them.

If the sound is still not transmitted, you should check the devices themselves in the Windows audio settings. Sometimes devices can act as a “main exit” or “main entrance” even if you don’t specify this. For example, my monitors have speakers and for some reason Windows tries to use them by default even when I change my standard output to a different output.

In Windows 11, you can open your Settings, select “System” in the sidebar, then select “Sound.”

From there, scroll down until you see “More sound settings” and click on it.

This will open a new pop-up window with all the devices Windows detects for playback and recording. Select a playback device that you are not using, right-click it and select Disable.

When you’re done, you can reset Windows’ default devices to the ones you actually use Then Return to Discord and correct the audio settings. Restart Discord (and maybe your computer too), start the stream again and your audio problems should be solved!