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obelix93
Asked: 2018-05-09 06:48:18 +0800 CST

WebEx on Ubuntu 18.04

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I am trying to get WebEx to work on Ubuntu 18.04. I have followed these steps, and now I can kick off WebEx and see participants. I can even see a shared screen, but I cannot share my own screen (or app).

Any idea what is missing?

Edit: As of the last 2-3 weeks I have WebEx working under Wayland. I'll be honest, I didn't do anything special, but I assume that the upgrade of certain drivers in Ubuntu made the difference. Screen sharing works partially: In WebEx you have the option to share your entire screen, or to share an app. Sharing the entire screen shows a black screen for all other participants, but sharing an app shows the actual app-window nicely displayed for the participants. I have now run several WebEx sessions from my Ubuntu 18.04 successfully (under Wayland).

wayland webex

5 Answers

  1. Given that I'm in an academic environment and our institution uses WebEx, I've keeped at this problem and think I've solved it in an incredibly easy way.

    My system - System76 galp3-pro (GalagoPro); Intel Core i7-8565U; Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 620 (WHL GT2); 32 GB RAM - Running Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS AMD64 (not Pop_OS) - Running the latest Intel Video Drivers from GIT (https://launchpad.net/~oibaf/+archive/ubuntu/graphics-drivers) - Using XServer-Xorg for the session, not Wayland - Using UNITY 7 as window manager (from the UNITY Maintainers PPA)

    Steps to get WebEx working:

    1. Using Firefox 74.0; download USER-AGENT SWITCHER (https://mybrowseraddon.com/useragent-switcher.html) from the FF Add-Ons
    2. Using the UAS; choose "Windows 10" as the Operating System and "Chrome" as the browser.

    3. Navigate to WebEx Test Meeting and join a test meeting. The WebEx website should permit the automagic downloading of the Chrome Plug-In and you should now be able to use WebEx as a native Windows10/Chrome user would. Native microphone, sound, webcam worked.

      I know it wasn't WAYLAND, but I hope this helps!

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  2. Here are the 3 easy steps to run your webex on Ubuntu 18.04LTS with screen sharing

    sudo apt install icedtea-plugin  
sudo apt install libpangoxft-1.0-0:i386 libxv1:i386 libpangox-1.0-0:i386  
sudo apt install icedtea-netx

    Restart your browser once after installation and simply click on the webex link. You will be able to initiate the session and can also do screen sharing and content sharing.

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  3. I also have to use Webex in an academic environement and it is quite easy to have it working (I'm on 19.10 but I think that it is just Firefox-dependant whatever the platform is). The steps are :

    1. Download the latest Firefox (74 in my case)

    2. Download the add-on User Agent Switcher (UAS)

    3. Change your User Agent to the same Firefox version but on Windows 10 as the operating system

    4. You should now have a fully working Webex Meeting !

    PS : I tried using Chrome in UAS but I was just able to get the video working, not audio

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  4. You won't be able to share your screen with WebEx under Wayland, due to the improved security handling of Wayland, as anything being able to record the screen is a security problem.

    If you wish to share your screen with WebEx, you'll need to switch back to an Xorg session at the login screen, before it will work.

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  5. I had the same issue after upgrading to Ubuntu 18.04. It seems that not only the user of Wayland prevented from sharing my screen via Webex, but also IcedTea/OpenJDK as the Java Web Start for CiscoWebexServlet. Switching to X11 desktop environment and to OracleJDK finally solved the problem for me. Please note that i am still using Java 8 so the issue with IcedTea/OpenJDK may not occur with later version.

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