palithn eveleenah nagdah
Judd Eisenhauer
I've seen several questions about this, but never an answer. On several streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Paramount, etc, I was getting a black screen with no video and could only hear the audio. I use Chrome, but checked Safari and was also getting the issue. I followed all of the troubleshooting steps on Netflix's website; still nothing. However, I found a fix so I wanted to share:
Unfortunately, this doesn't help my issue at all. I have been struggling with this ever since I bought a MacBook Pro. This issues happens with Hulu, Paramount+, Peacock, etc. I can't rely on my Mac to stream video. I have to get my iPad Pro for that ?. I tried Safari, Chrome, and Edge and issue is the same every time. I think this is a Mac related issue rather than a browser issue. I am going to contact apple support on this and will update here.
I have been struggling with this forever and couldn't figure out why it was so intermittent. I finally figured out why on my system it was happening. I use multiple screens and will stream while I work. While working I sometimes need to create a video of my screen so I'll pause the streaming, and open up Camtasia to record my screen. If any screen recording software is open all the streaming services will only show black screen with audio. Make sure you have any software that records your screen is closed out. For me that is Snagit, Camtasia, Vidyard, ect.
I had similar problem. I have macbook2023 connected to monitors through dell d6000 universal docking station. Since dell uses DisplayLink technology.. as soon as I connect MacBook to docking station .. currently running Netflix video turns blank with audio streaming on...
I have also been struggling with this forever too. It started again this morning and thankfully found this post. I had my iPad plugged in as a monitor and it turns out this was the cause! Can't believe I'd never noticed this correlation either. Thanks for solving this mystery!
So it was a crashed background process which led to the black screen issue. The Mac even said "Your screen is being observed" at the user login. That may could happen with similar recording software / screen recordings as well.
Just talked to thew Apple Tech support and got a resolution. This is happening due to an interference from one of the "Login items" load during the startup and running in the background. In my case, it was the DisplayLink drive I have installed to support multiple monitors. When I disable the DisplayLink, the issue was resolved immediately. If you don't use DisplayLink, you can troubleshoot the issue by starting Mac in the Safe Mode. Please follow steps below.
Please stream videos in the SafeMode and see if the issue exists. If you can watch videos in the Safe Mode, then issues is with one of the login items and/or extension you have installed. Please restart the Mac. After that, start disabling login items one-by-one to find the defective item.
oh man, but this doesn't help much if you don't use chrome at all and you are still getting the black screen. this is such a puzzle and I am really really surprised no one has found causes and fixes for this yet. like its happening at least twice a month for me now on any streaming that isn't Netflix and I ONLY use safari.(but I still checked the others and they all have same prob too) I have done so much troubleshooting, restarting, turning off any ad blockers and pop up blockers, clearing cache (pain the the rear too that one), and logging in and out of everything all the way to restarting the internet and computer for a full restart cycle. I just wanted to watch some wheel of time on my day off. surely, someone out there knows why this is happening? (MacBook Pro with M1 and Ventura)
Same issue. Was able to make the changes in Chrome and am able to have both sound and video when screen mirroring to TV. Still black screen when trying to screen mirror movie purchased from Apple TV from Mac to TV. Works perfectly when using iPad. Odd.
Was trying to Chromecast Screen or Apple Mirroring The Matrix on Max.com and filter it via ClearPlay but the video was not showing up only the audio... Tried updating/upgrading chrome, ClearPlay extension and nothing... Came across this amazing apple community post and BAM... was able to Chromecast Screen or Apple Mirroring with video and audio... Thanks for taking the time to post.
THANK YOU for this comment!!!! This is what solved my problem! I checked all my apps that records screens and they were not running. I have been trying to figure this one out for so long. Why on earth does iPad sidecar cause this? That is so crazy!
On my debian installation I installed chromium 39 and the latest version of libnss3, netflix failed to play. I tried on my ubuntu installation and it too failed. I tried installing chrome from the website and it WORKED. I looked at the version of chrome and chromium. They're both 39.0.2171.XY. AFAIK chrome 38+ works.
You will need that plugin installed to chromium for it to work. You might also add the google talk plugin and pdf plugin while you're at it, but if you do so you pretty much just installed chrome as those are some of the primary differences.
In fact, though, until late summer 2015 you couldn't install that component singly to chromium - we can chalk that one up to another (short-lived) win for Digital Restrictive Management, I guess. With some serious downtime and expert hacking you might be able to compile your own package (a chromium compile is no Sunday drive, by the way) - but you might have to hack the plugin out of chrome.
As of August 2015, though, you can now install the Widevine module separately as the chromium maintainer has patched the source to accept its use. For example, on an Arch Linux system there is the chromium-widevine AUR package. Have a look at its PKGBUILD script to see how it's done - it doesn't look very complicated. Essentially the chrome...deb debian package file is downloaded, from it are extracted only a few Widevine relevant files, their version numbers captured, and then these are copied into the relevant chromium installation paths.
There is also the Pipelight project which should enable you to use the Silverlight plugin (via wine) to watch Netflix video (and so not the HTML5 method which works with chrome) in chromium. It is a somewhat heavy-handed approach in my opinion, but it is a popular option.
Using Chromium I can login, poke around and even alter my account settings. I can do everything I can do on Chrome does except stream. When I try, I get a screen telling me all about HTML5 and Silverlight.
i am willing to overlook the fact that my warning was mostly boring (about voiding my warranty for the free software) and award so many free, totally useful internet points to you for this amazing share!
2-I can run Chrome without keying in, provided I cancel the request 6 times. This would be a complication I could live but sometimes it often takes a few minutes before the 6th one appears. Which raises the question of why they ask in the first place.
Firefox is fine and I know a lot of people like it, but I personally prefer chrome because it syncs my data across all my devices so I can work on the same projects and documents from anywhere. Chrome has always run fast and stable for me, where as I have run into crashing and other problems with Firefox in the past. Again, just a personal preference thing.
I'm looking for a way to write the batch file to search and locate the chrome.exe and then execute it with the above switches. That way I can share the batch file to other people and it will work regardless of their file paths. Can it be done?
Because people might have program files on an odd drive rather than C (unusual but possible), it's best to use the system variable for the program files folder. Also, as it could be in the local app data folder, we should check there too.
I've written something that works. Which I couldn't have done without Sir Adelaide's post. So thank you, Sir Adelaide, for your example. Also thank you everyone else who contributed; it's been educational :)
In this case we assume Google Chrome has 2 install paths, and therefore this is the main variable we need to account for. Using the Test-Path option we can dictate 2 UNC paths for the potential option.
Then we make an additional 2 variables for the two paths where chrome.exe may exist. The function ConfirmSetPaths will test if chrome.exe exists at the "default" path on the PC (in this instance we used "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe").
Paul von Helwand commented July 19, 2022 4:55 PM Report
Solution: Go into Chrome Settings. Search for "hardware". Disable "Use hardware acceleration when available" and restart chrome. Netflix and Amazon Prime Video have images again.
It's because of the screen recording integration that Display Link has. I don't know why they even have that, because it feels privacy violating. But streaming services don't want you to screen record their content, so you only get a black screen. Because Display Link is non-stop recording your screen. I hope they are going to remove this nonsense integration. Because this tempers with people their workflows and usage of their screens.
SOLUTION:
Hey Guys! This is a problem with DRM. Websites that protect their content don't show when DisplayLink is on, because the way they emulate a screen is like "recording it". To get around this, download a web browser that is not safari, go into options and disable hardware acceleration, It should work fine :)