Google Meet Black Screen on Safari
I’ve had an ongoing issue with Google Meet on Safari where I’m seeing a black screen when starting or joining video meetings. I’ve seen plenty of Mac users complain about the same problem, but no one shared the solution that I discovered. Google Meet worked fine when using Brave Browser or other Chrome-based browsers. Others on the Google Meet can see my video and I can see them, but I don’t see myself. There are a few things to check and some expected settings that aren’t relevant. The fact that others could see my video (I asked) but I couldn’t told me that the cause was with my own settings.
System Settings> Privacy and Security
The Privacy and Security pages in System Settings would seem to be the right place to check, but only third party applications and not Safari that request access are listed.
Safari Browser Extensions
I have Stop the Madness Pro on my Mac and tried disabling it for meet.google.com. No effect.
Safari> Settings…> Websites
When starting or joining a meeting, Safari asks for permission to access the camera and microphone; although the right response is to allow both, video is still black. Google Meet even appears in the list of websites that require access to the Microphone and Camera, however changing these from “ask” to “allow” seems to be temporary and affect only the currently open browser window, and doesn’t change the current (or default) behavior. In my case, this also has no effect.
Google Meet Settings
I was able to correct the problem in Google Meet> ellipsis menu (…)> Settings. Note that these options are only available if you have an active video call; they aren’t available unless a video call is active. In my case, the Video Send Resolution setting was set to Standard Definition (maximum) (360p) which was too low and had to be manually set. After changing the Send resolution and Receive resolution (maximum) settings to High Definition (720p) using the drop down menus, my video immediately appeared and the problem resolved. I’ve noticed in subsequent Google Meet sessions that the settings for both parameters reset to “Automatic” which seems to work fine.