Discord's latest iOS update is bugging out video calls and screen sharing

The recent Discord update introduced a flurry of new features and bug fixes with no mention of the “yellowing” issue with messages. But if you’ve noticed that Discord keeps crashing every time you turn on your camera or attempt to share your screen on iOS, you’re not alone. Since Discord’s latest update, version 253.0, rolled out on November 4, a wave of frustrated users has reported that the app has been experiencing critical crashes and glitches during video calls and screen sharing on iPhones and iPads. This isn’t just happening to one or two people — it’s a widespread issue affecting various iOS/iPadOS versions and devices.

The problem has made its way across Discord support threads, where users describe similar, frustrating experiences. As soon as they switch on their cameras or attempt to share their screens, the app freezes, crashes, or, in some cases, fully closes itself. Even reinstalling the app, updating iOS, or toggling camera permissions hasn’t resolved the issue. Some users have noticed that this bug doesn’t seem to affect Android devices, hinting that it may be exclusive to iOS.

The screenshot below provides a closer look at the screen-sharing error that users are facing:

While the video below best describes what’s happening during video calls:

When trying to initiate a broadcast on Discord, users are greeted with an error message stating, “Live Broadcast to Discord has stopped due to: Attempted to start an invalid broadcast session.” This message indicates that the app is unable to establish a proper broadcast connection, possibly due to issues with the new update. The error suggests a backend issue in Discord’s broadcasting protocol, which could be causing both the screen-sharing failures and the camera crashes.

While the majority of the reports are from Discord users experiencing issues during video calls, these glitches aren’t limited to just camera functionality. A handful of users report that screen sharing is just as problematic, if not worse. Trying to broadcast their screens during calls or events has resulted in abrupt stops and error messages, a frustrating hiccup that many weren’t expecting after the recent update. A few people even noted that their screen-sharing attempts would immediately end after a few seconds, leading them to repeatedly restart the app, hoping for a workaround.

The timing of these issues aligns almost exactly with the release of Discord version 253.0 on iOS, leading most users to speculate that the root cause is indeed Discord’s latest update. Whether you’re on iOS 17 or the newer iOS 18.1, the pattern holds, pointing to an app-specific bug rather than an iOS compatibility issue. For now, it appears that a fresh reinstall of the Discord app only makes things worse, causing previously unaffected devices to start crashing too.

While users await a fix from Discord, it’s clear that this issue has disrupted a major part of their regular experience, especially for those who rely on screen sharing or video calls to connect with friends or host events. Discord has yet to officially respond, but the good news is that given the volume of reports, a patch or hotfix could be in the works soon.