nixos/pantheon: screen recording does not work

[davidak]

Nixpkgs version

• Stable (25.11)

Describe the bug

Since the Upgrade to NixOS 25.11 the Pantheon Desktop uses Wayland. Now, screen recording does not work with most software.

I have added this configuration, but it does not help:

  xdg = {
    portal = {
      enable = true;
      extraPortals = with pkgs; [
        xdg-desktop-portal-gtk
        xdg-desktop-portal-gnome
      ];
    };
  };

Does it work for you on other desktops?

Steps to reproduce

The easiest way to reproduce:

1. Run nix run nixpkgs#kooha
2. Click Record

Expected behaviour

working screen recording

Screenshots

No response

Relevant log output

[davidak@gaming:~]$ nix run nixpkgs#kooha
2026-01-04T03:37:24.502745Z  INFO kooha::application: Kooha (io.github.seadve.Kooha)
2026-01-04T03:37:24.502757Z  INFO kooha::application: Version: 2.3.0 ()
2026-01-04T03:37:24.502759Z  INFO kooha::application: Datadir: /nix/store/pamcs1h11yfay6fkwpmaxzyx5qm7i2qy-kooha-2.3.0/share/kooha
2026-01-04T03:37:26.681632Z ERROR kooha::window: Failed to start recording

Caused by:
    0: Failed to create session
    1: Failed to call `CreateSession` with parameters: Variant { ptr: 0x563888a0b170, type: VariantTy { inner: "(a{sv})" }, value: "({'handle_token': <'kooha_1'>, 'session_handle_token': <'kooha_0'>},)" }
    2: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod: No such interface “org.freedesktop.portal.ScreenCast” on object at path /org/freedesktop/portal/desktop

Additional context

@bobby285271 could org.freedesktop.portal.ScreenCast be missing, because you removed xdg-desktop-portal-pantheon in #462896?

The issue is reproducible with other screen recording software that support Wayland:

[davidak@gaming:~]$ nix run nixpkgs#wayfarer
initial matroska
Version Info: v1.3.3 (, , )
Build Info: 2025-12-21T16:37:11Z Linux 6.12.62 x86_64 localhost, gcc version 15.2.0 (GCC)  / GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.44 / Vala 0.56.18
:DBG: 0 scale 1.000000
[2026-01-04 02:23:08.958] [MANGOHUD] [info] [blacklist.cpp:83] process '.wayfarer-wrapped' is blacklisted in MangoHud
Session failed [GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod: No such interface “org.freedesktop.portal.ScreenCast” on object at path /org/freedesktop/portal/desktop]

One exception that actually work is gpu-screen-recorder!

programs.gpu-screen-recorder.enable = true;
  environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
    gpu-screen-recorder-gtk
  ];

[davidak@gaming:~]$ gpu-screen-recorder-gtk 
gsr error: gsr_dbus_call_screencast_method: failed with error: No such interface “org.freedesktop.portal.ScreenCast” on object at path /org/freedesktop/portal/desktop
gsr error: gsr_dbus_screencast_create_session: failed to setup ScreenCast session. Make sure you have a desktop portal running with support for the ScreenCast interface and that the desktop portal matches the Wayland compositor you are running.
gsr error: failed to initialize global shortcuts

(com.dec05eba.gpu_screen_recorder:39830): Gtk-CRITICAL **: 04:47:39.555: gtk_widget_get_scale_factor: assertion 'GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed
info: running command: gpu-screen-recorder -w DP-3 -c matroska -k auto -ac opus -f 30 -cursor yes -restore-portal-session yes -cr limited -encoder gpu -o /home/davidak/Videos/Video_2026-01-04_04-47-47.mkv -q very_high -a device:default_output -s 1920x1080

(com.dec05eba.gpu_screen_recorder:39830): Gtk-CRITICAL **: 04:47:47.856: gtk_widget_get_scale_factor: assertion 'GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed
gsr info: gsr_kms_client_init: gsr-kms-server is not installed in the same directory as gpu-screen-recorder (/nix/store/1nma0hhwjrk4z2hl9cpxfg39dd4mxg3v-gpu-screen-recorder-5.9.0/bin/.wrapped/gsr-kms-server not found), looking for gsr-kms-server in PATH instead
gsr info: gsr_kms_client_init: setting up connection to /run/wrappers/bin/gsr-kms-server
gsr info: gsr_kms_client_init: waiting for server to connect
kms server info: connecting to the client
gsr info: gsr_kms_client_init: server connected
gsr info: replacing file-backed unix domain socket with socketpair
kms server info: connected to the client
gsr info: using socketpair
gsr info: using h264 encoder because a codec was not specified
[h264_nvenc @ 0x56244cb60d00] ignoring invalid SAR: 0/0

(com.dec05eba.gpu_screen_recorder:39830): Gtk-CRITICAL **: 04:47:49.508: gtk_widget_get_scale_factor: assertion 'GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed
Notification: title: GPU Screen Recorder, body: The recording was saved to /home/davidak/Videos/Video_2026-01-04_04-47-47.mkv

System metadata

• system: "x86_64-linux"
• host os: Linux 6.12.63, NixOS, 25.11 (Xantusia), 25.11.3064.64049ca74d63
• multi-user?: yes
• sandbox: yes
• version: nix-env (Nix) 2.31.2
• channels(root): "home-manager-25.11.tar.gz, nixos-25.11, nixos-hardware, nixos-unstable"
• nixpkgs: /nix/store/lxfwbq8lv7jwsfbqmr28fmj6v4b8hqnb-nixos-25.11/nixos

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[bobby285271]

Yes, see elementary/portals#157

In #470686 (comment) we decided that startup delay is a more critical issue.

[OPNA2608]

Unless there was another issue & recent fix for this in 25.11, then the removal of xdg-desktop-portal-pantheon also also caused my display refresh rate to get reset to 60hz on every launch. The confirmation dialogue for making changes to display settings also no longer appears, making it annoying to fix the above. Re-adding xdg-desktop-portal-pantheon fixed both of these issues.

[ging-dev]

Yes, see elementary/portals#157

In #470686 (comment) we decided that startup delay is a more critical issue.

Custom keyboard shortcuts on Pantheon don't seem to work — could that be related to the issue above?

[bobby285271]

• Initialize gtk later elementary/portals#190

[OPNA2608]

With #527865 and #528011 merged into master and backported to 26.05, I think we can close this?