Question / Help Audio crashing when using USB audio devices

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Picklwarrior

New Member
I have tried reinstalling and updating the drivers. This problem almost only happens within the first 2-3 seconds of starting a recording or stream. Sound returns by unplugging and replugging the device after the stream or recording has been stopped. There is still some sound when it is crashing, but it is completely disjointed and broken. It only seems to happen when audio from certain applications is playing. Unfortunately, this includes most applications I would want to be recording. This happens with all USB devices I have tried.

Here's an example of what the crash sounds like, however the video is from before I gathered more info on the issue, so disregard what I say at the beginnning.

 
FerretBomb

FerretBomb

Active Member
Looks like your audio drivers may need to be updated; the 'speakers' device is disappearing and reappearing, and very likely what's causing the problem. As to *why* that's happening... well. Could be an OS side thing, potentially.
Is this a USB headset? It's also falling WAY behind on timestamps, which can cause OBS to freak out a bit, especially if you have 'Use Mic QPC Timestamps' checked in the Advanced section of the settings.

I assume this is only occurring when OBS is recording, and that the issue doesn't happen without OBS open (and actively encoding)?
 
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Picklwarrior

New Member
Drivers are updated, I even deleted and reinstalled them right before that log. Edit: The USB audio device drivers, I don't know about anything else that may need to be updated

It is a USB headset, along with several others I've tried

I don't have that option checked, and it still crashes with it checked.

Correct, this only happens with OBS running.

Edit: Everything works great when I play desktop audio through a non-USB device, still using the USB device for microphone audio, but that is not something I can continue to do.
 
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FerretBomb

FerretBomb

Active Member
Well, sounds like you've narrowed down the problem. Have you installed your motherboard's drivers, or are you running on the Windows defaults? I'd recommend trying to check and see if they have any USB drivers available. Also, are you trying this in the same USB port every time? Try switching them. Especially if you have a USB webcam (possible that the bus is being flooded for that host controller, but as your demo video didn't have a cam, possibly not).
 
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Picklwarrior

New Member
I just tried 5 different USB ports with both headsets, some 2.0 and some 3.0, to no avail

No webcam

I am new to windows, so motherboard drivers and stuff is foreign to me. I'm guessing I haven't installed them, as I don't know what they are or where I would get them.

Edit: I think I found them. Attempting to install now...

Installed. Crash is still happening :(

I installed some USB driver that I found and it has helped the issue... It still gets far behind but not as bad as it was. Still unusable, but there's progress!

Here's the latest logfile. It keeps hanging up and falling out of sync, and then catching up again. It gets worse in some programs.

http://pastebin.com/Fxi1rEVA

Other software doesn't have this issue nearly as frequently, but it turns out that the slight silence as it lags and resyncs very occasionally happens even when OBS isn't running. With OBS it's 5-6 seconds between the silences as it resyncs
 
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Lain

Forum Admin
Lain
Forum Moderator
Developer
Try setting "scene buffering offfset" in advanced settings to about 2000. Though I'm not sure how much it'll help.

Also, there *is* an issue when unplugging audio devices and replugging them in currently (you could call it a bug but it's a design flaw, which is actually fixed in the rewrite). If you unplug the USB device while streaming, it'll cause undefined behavior, and potentially cause the stream to have issues. This is my fault and I'm working as fast as I can to try to get the newer version out there, but it'll still take some time.
 
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Picklwarrior

New Member
Scene buffering time set to 2000 didn't seem to help any. This issue doesn't include unplugging the device, this happens when it's been plugged in through the entire time, and immediately.
 
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Lain

Forum Admin
Lain
Forum Moderator
Developer
Wait a sec, is this happening on your entire computer, or just the stream? If it's happening on your computer then I would suspect a system issue.

See I thought it was just the stream. I was totally confused about what was going on here. Still am even if so, but when this happens to the computer itself (and this is what happens on your end as well, not just the stream) then it's almost assuredly some sort of system issue. OBS activates a lot of devices on the system at once so this isn't entirely unprecedented, but very rare to see happen.
 
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Picklwarrior

New Member
I am pretty sure it's my entire computer, but it happens so infrequently and quickly I'm not even sure it's there most of the time, and as such I don't really mind it. But when the stream is running, it's every 5 or 6 seconds. So what you described sounds accurate.

It's also important to note that how this issue looks has evolved significantly as I've been troubleshooting over the last few months (I have some previous posts regarding it) and even throughout this thread. When I posted this thread it would completely crash and not resync itself, but since trying numerous suggested solutions the problem has come to look different.

I don't suppose you have any idea what kind of "system issue" this could be? I am happy to post any information necessary to clear this up or even enter a screen share if anybody has theories and is willing to take a look.
 
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Lain

Forum Admin
Lain
Forum Moderator
Developer
I mean do you hear it on your headset/etc? If you hear it and it's happening to your actual computer and not to the stream alone, then it's definitely a system/hardware issue and it would be kind of out of my hands at that point. I've just never seen this sort of thing happen before like it is on the video. As to what sort of system issue, I'm guessing potentially hardware or driver related but I honestly couldn't know without being on the system myself.

So it's somewhat of a difficult situation for both of us in this case I think. If I personally were to do testing, I'd most likely of course check the drivers (as you already have done), probably run thorough tests on USB devices, check for as many hardware issues as possible, probably even eventually try to reinstall windows to confirm whether it's an actual hardware problem or a software problem if nothing else works. But again, that's just what I'd probably do. Again, if it's not just the stream output, then it's a difficult situation and I can only just guess at this point.
 
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Zack Beasley

New Member
i am currently experiencing the same sort of problem, except i know its obs that is causing it. my headsets mic is cut out about 2 minutes into my stream/recording. it worked just fine when OBS is closed. what is the problem, this just started happening last night around 11pm my time and its still happening. i know its not the headset because it works fine when OBS is closed, mic and all.
 
FerretBomb

FerretBomb

Active Member
Opening a new thread with a link back to the prior one would be a good idea, rather than necroposting a thread from more than an year ago, for potentially an entirely different root cause.
 
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