We wish we'd thought of it, but we didn't! This technique was documented by Prof. Aleman and resolve the issues experience while attempting to do screen sharing in webinar tools.
| Submitted by: | Prof. Dionne Aleman |
The Problem
Catalina sometimes does not recognize that a program has requested to share/record a screen, and you therefore can’t give that program permission to share/record the screen in System Preferences -> Security & Privacy.
The problem *is not* forgetting to go System Preferences -> Security & Privacy and checking off the application to grant it permission in the various areas (camera, microphone access, etc.); the application simply does not appear in those areas and there is no way to manually insert an application into those areas to check it off.
The Fix
Boot in safe mode (hold shift while restarting) and start the application. It should then appear in System Preferences -> Security & Privacy and you can give it permissions in the appropriate areas. Then restart in normal mode.
Further tips
I should note that I have SIP (System Integrity Protection) disabled for a host of reasons, one of which is that it was preventing me from sharing my camera and screen in Zoom and Webex. I read in a few troubleshooting pages that SIP has to be enabled for Catalina to detect screen share/record requests, but found this to be not only false, but part of the problem in my own experience. I find my computer runs much faster without SIP, too. (See Instructions to turn SIP on/off)
If you have to turn SIP off to grant permissions, you can always turn it back on afterwards if you are more comfortable leaving it on.