# Elgato HD60S+ Freeze Macbook Pro M1



## supremeniky (Dec 26, 2020)

i bought the macbook pro with the m1 chip and the elgato hd60s+ they looked working fine but sometimes the elgato freeze on a frame and i have to unplug and plug it again to fix the problem... it’s quite frustrating because i’m a streamer and i’m not constantly keeping attention on the preview... so i find that the stream is just freezed on a frame while me and my webcam is working.
Does anyone know what could be the problem?

Thx in advance,
Supremeniky


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## supremeniky (Dec 26, 2020)

I'll attach the log file of yesterday stream


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## nottooloud (Dec 26, 2020)

Have you got different cables you can try?
The log says your elgato is disconnecting.


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## supremeniky (Dec 26, 2020)

nottooloud said:


> Have you got different cables you can try?
> The log says your elgato is disconnecting.



is disconnecting because to fix the problem i have to unplug and plug it in back, the cable is working fine it’s a certified thunderbolt 3 cable


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## nottooloud (Dec 26, 2020)

supremeniky said:


> it’s a certified thunderbolt 3 cable



...which could be bad. So could the jack, or the Elgato, or the HDMI cable from the source, or the source. What's plugged into it?


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## supremeniky (Dec 27, 2020)

i found a fix: i have to keep both the elgato game capture software and obs studio. the elgato program can “talk“ with the device and can set the settings you want. so, it avoids errors and the game capture from obs doesn’t crash.
it wasn’t a cable problem, i have tested each one separately in another setup without errors.


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## jayarenrique (Dec 28, 2020)

Hi.

I have the same problem. But I have the MacBook Air M1.

At first I thought it was because of the USB to USB-C adapter that I used to connect my HD60S+ to my MacBook, so I bought a Thunderbolt 3 cable to get rid of the adapter, but the problem still persisted. I'm so glad you found a workaround! 



> i found a fix: i have to keep both the elgato game capture software and obs studio.



I will try that too to avoid the freezing. It is so frustrating as I have to replug the wires just to get it working again.

Thanks!


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## supremeniky (Dec 28, 2020)

jayarenrique said:


> Hi.
> 
> I have the same problem. But I have the MacBook Air M1.
> 
> ...



No problem man if i’ll find a better solution i’ll post it on this post to keep evryone updated


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## Josh C. (Jan 1, 2021)

Hi, I’m just recording through OBS Studio but have been experiencing the same issue on M1 MacBook Air with HD60 S+. Like jay I’ve also tried different HDMI cables, USB to USB-C adapter, high speed Thunderbolt 3 (it’s even Apple brand!), but all configurations seem to be at the mercy of a random frame freeze at any time. I have to quit OBS and plug the Elgato back in to refresh the canvas to try again.

When I manage to get an uninterrupted recording, the quality’s great with 1080p at a constant 60 FPS; the log files also indicate nothing troubling like encoding overload.



supremeniky said:


> i found a fix: i have to keep both the elgato game capture software and obs studio. the elgato program can “talk“ with the device and can set the settings you want. so, it avoids errors and the game capture from obs doesn’t crash.
> it wasn’t a cable problem, i have tested each one separately in another setup without errors.


I’m a bit confused sorry with what you’re referring to here. I installed Game Capture and had it open while recording through OBS, but made no difference for me. Since it’s not supported by Rosetta the Mac doesn’t even treat it as an application; it recognizes my HD60 S+ for audio input but beyond that, what other settings can be tweaked?


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## supremeniky (Jan 1, 2021)

Josh C. said:


> Hi, I’m just recording through OBS Studio but have been experiencing the same issue on M1 MacBook Air with HD60 S+. Like jay I’ve also tried different HDMI cables, USB to USB-C adapter, high speed Thunderbolt 3 (it’s even Apple brand!), but all configurations seem to be at the mercy of a random frame freeze at any time. I have to quit OBS and plug the Elgato back in to refresh the canvas to try again.
> 
> When I manage to get an uninterrupted recording, the quality’s great with 1080p at a constant 60 FPS; the log files also indicate nothing troubling like encoding overload.
> 
> ...




Hi Josh, The steps that I do every time i’m about to stream are: 

Turn on the Macbook Pro
Connect the Elgato HD60S+ using a thunderbolt 3 cable
Turn on the HDMI source (for me the PS4 Pro)
When the Elgato booted and I have HDMI passthrough, I open the Elgato Game Capture HD software 
Change the settings for the recording (Remember to disable the flashback recording to avoid memory problem)
While leaving it open start OBS studio and i’m good to go
Lately i have done even 6 hours long stream without a problem.
(i have the upgraded 16gb of unified memory version, the encoding method set on "x264" and the speed on "ultrafast")

I hope this would help you,
Supremeniky


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## Josh C. (Jan 13, 2021)

supremeniky said:


> Hi Josh, The steps that I do every time i’m about to stream are:
> 
> Turn on the Macbook Pro
> Connect the Elgato HD60S+ using a thunderbolt 3 cable
> ...


Sorry, forgot to respond earlier but thanks so much for the guidance! Stupidly I hadn't realized at first that the OBS freezing also meant Game Capture couldn't display the HD60 S+ as a capture option until I did the plugging in/out business. But since that's solved, I've recorded three 40 min+ files at the same quality as before with no freezing.

I've also got 16GB and 1TB loaded on this one, but I do have several Safari tabs open while recording so I'm just using the x264 low CPU preset on superfast to err on the side of caution. I could experiment with advanced settings down the line but for now, I'm perfectly happy with the output quality even once processed through YouTube - close to 0 lagged frames (odd one here or there), and from the log files CPU usage seems to cap at ~35%. I'm by no means a performance nut, and the M1 chips I've gathered are pretty beastly, but I'm very pleased with these results from an entry level laptop. Again I appreciate the help, cheers!


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