"Ask To Share Screen" Greyed Out in Messages

In Messages, when I am chatting with my brother, I am unable to ask him to share his screen. The reverse is also true (he is unable to offer to share his screen with me). If we click "Video" all the "enable" options at the bottom are checked on both machines. We have done screen sharing in the past, it's how I offer tech support to him. But for some reason it's not working now.

We are both running the latest version of OS X, 10.8.4 and we both have good (18MBps+) internet speeds. I've seen posts involving iChat and earlier versions of OS X, but nothing with Mountain Lion and Messages.

Any ideas on how I can get this working?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Aug 27, 2013 3:50 PM

20 replies

fl2

Level 1

1 points

Apr 14, 2014 9:25 AM in response to groberts1980

What a complicated mess! How is this intuitive? How does this "Just Work"

Can you still screen share from iMessage to iMessage or not???

Are you saying that apple iMessage cannot do it and that you need an additional non apple account to do it? I'm totally confused.

groberts1980 Author

Level 1

22 points

Apr 14, 2014 9:29 AM in response to fl2

It's not intuitive. At all. Apple does most things really well, and royally ***** up a few others. iPhoto is one. Messages screen sharing is another. I think you both have to be using GoogleTalk within Messages, and make sure the current conversation is using the GTalk account.

Maybe it's an issue of Apple wanting Messages to be capable of handling chat with multiple accounts, and I wish they'd stop. Make it AppleID and iPhone number only. That way it knows what it's using and you'd be able to easily screen share every time.

fl2

Level 1

1 points

Apr 14, 2014 9:38 AM in response to groberts1980

Integration with the rest of the world is good. We need more of that to help Apple be more attractive to everyone. But not at the expense of screwing up our nice smooth running system. Either get it right or give it up. Geez!

groberts1980 Author

Level 1

22 points

Apr 14, 2014 9:41 AM in response to fl2

Honestly people knock Apple for their walled garden, but that's why things work so well. Microsoft and the PC world are so complicated because they support everything under the sun. If Messages only supported Apple protocol, it would be easy to screen share.

fl2

Level 1

1 points

Apr 14, 2014 9:34 AM in response to groberts1980

Whomever is in charge of iMessages and it's useability an ease of use and integration needs to be fired. Screen sharing used to be so easy!

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"Ask To Share Screen" Greyed Out in Messages