Arch Linux

chrisco23

Member

Registered: 2017-12-13

Posts: 115

Zoom will not run, using i3 and polybar, pops up garbage.

Zoom had been working for me when I last used it, a month ago, for a doctor's appointment (we're in lockdown more or less due to the pandemic).

My appointment yesterday was a mess.  Sorry in advance that I'm not sure whether my question belongs here or in a zoom forum or an i3 forum, but hopefully I'll find someone who has either seen this problem or has an idea how to resolve it.

If I try to run the Zoom app on my Arch Linux desktop today, a window pops up for a few seconds, consisting entirely of what looks like a diced-up "collage" of what's on my polybar-based i3 bar.

So far I couldn't really even manage to get a screenshot but hopefully you get the picture.

Running zoom from command line gives no clue whatsoever.  I can not find if there is some way to have it print out debug info, verbosity, etc., because "zoom --help" for example just does nothing other than what "zoom" does.

So then yesterday I used the "browser" option (via Chromium) and that was its own disaster.  Audio and video could work for a minute but 1. they would be totally out of sync, and 2. they page would crash and require a reload literally every 60-120 seconds.

I would prefer not to use Zoom in the first place, but it is the only option given me by the people running the show at UCSF Medical Center.

Any advice at all will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

progandy

Member

Registered: 2012-05-17

Posts: 5,196

Re: Zoom will not run, using i3 and polybar, pops up garbage.

I believe zoom has a transparent overlay window to show a red frame on the recorded monitor. That may cause problems, so try to disable it.

https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues … -645984058

$ $EDITOR ~/.config/zoomus.conf

[AS]
showframewindow=false

---

| alias CUTF='LANG=en_XX.UTF-8@POSIX ' |

chrisco23

Member

Registered: 2017-12-13

Posts: 115

Re: Zoom will not run, using i3 and polybar, pops up garbage.

Thanks but I see no change.

I tried once again to take a screenshot but my knowledge of scrot is very minimal and having scrot work with 2 monitors etc.

Nevertheless, I took a screenshot which will show at least half of the "zoom window" that pops up for about 2 seconds before vanishing.

This one I notice showed bits of gimp, which I had tried to run at that moment.  But prior to that all I saw were slices of the polybar/i3 bar from the top of my main monitor (40" tv).

Ok.  I thought maybe I should crop out just the "zoom window" (if there was to be one) but I decided to not even do that, as this gives the best representation of what I face when trying to run zoom currently on my Arch w/i3 + polybar machine.

https://ibb.co/NVn73Wf