Had that problem recently, apparently the (nvidia) gpu driver version of the system and the one within the flatpak need to be exactly the same. Ran a flatpak update and it worked again.
this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2026
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I dont know, maybe its some kind of mandela effect i got, because i do need to update flatpak after system update. Maybe i just didnt update flatpak and didnt noticed everything not working until hours later, because lightweight apps didnt run as slow or had graphics bugs.
Have to see it live to be sure, but it sounds like potentially you're getting an update while the machine is running, and you haven't rebooted to load the new GPU module.
I dont have an auto update enabled on my system, and i always reboot system after update. For flatpak specifically, when i hear people complaining about me streaming the black screen, i just update flatpak nvidia package, and dont even need to restart zoom to be able to start streaming again. And as i said, it realy does happen suddenly. I can stream video normally, but few minutes later, while still in meeting, i start streaming again and it shows black screen, while i did absolutely nothing.
Really weird stuff.
Wait a minute, what is the Flatpak Nvidia package? Do you need that for GPU acceleration for Flatpak apps on Nvidia? How do you even know whether GPU acceleration is working?
(I recently got a new laptop and it's the first time I have a dedicated GPU, and I have no idea how it all works. Sorry for hijacking your thread.)
Its org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.nvidia
If you have an Nvidia GPU, run nvidia-smi in your terminal and it will show with prices are engaging the GPU.
For AMD any process monitor should show GPU usage for procs, or there is radeontop for more detailed info.
that happened to me on nvidia when the apt packages auto updated but not the flatpak ones to match the new driver.
Kind of sounds like you have a rogue process engage the Wayland API to take exclusive control over something. Maybe you're running multiple video apps that take input from your camera or streaming device at the same time, like Discord, Zoom, and OBS all running at the same time. One has exclusive access while you stream, but then another engages the same device and takes control for a split second, killing the other apps access.
That's the main reason I created desktop launchers that use Nvidia together with the program no matter if it's needed or not, maybe you should try it