Cannot stream to Facebook without opening Producer page.

[Martin_H]

I can’t get my stream working properly on Facebookwith a persistent key. The first time I set it up inside Facebook Producer, it works fine though I have to click the Go Live button to start it. If I stop streaming on OBS and let the video end on Facebook and then try to start streaming again on OBS I get error message “ Could not access the specified channel or stream key. Please double-check your stream key …”.

The only way I can get it going again is to go back to the FB LiveProducer page, restart streaming on OBS and then click Go Live on the FB Producer page..

Any suggestions as to what I am doing wrong here?

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Did you RTFM Facebook documentation on streaming?
Did you set the setting in Facebook stream to end the stream when streaming software is interrupted? If not, stop the stream in OBS did NOT end the stream (and you should be able to re-connect to same stream). But I've seen 'glitches' in FB livestream operations (like not auto starting as it should on a scheduled stream)... so could easily be a FB bug (it is a free service after all)

Sorry, I use non-persistent stream key for security reasons, and I always use /Live/Producer to monitor stream

Good luck in finding an answer

 

[dqm]

FB's requirement to initiate a livestream from their website, rather from OBS, is annoying, to say the least. I use Restream to forward livestreams to FB without such a requirement. You may also find that monitoring from the restream website is a more robust experience.

 

[Martin_H]

Did you RTFM Facebook documentation on streaming?

Yes, RTFM is always my first step in stuff like this! I have gone through everything on their help pages (plus 3rd party tutorials) and can't find anything to help me with it; that's why I posted here.

Did you set the setting in Facebook stream to end the stream when streaming software is interrupted?)

Yes, I have enabled it. Some people recommend disabling that if the Internet connection is poor but that is not the case here and disabling it would create other issues for me.

Sorry, I use non-persistent stream key for security reasons, and I always use /Live/Producer to monitor stream

This is for a religious organisation streaming services to Facebook and Youtube and I am ultimately trying to develop an app that will allow designated people to do some basic management of Live Videos without having admin access to the Facebook or Youtube pages. A persistent key is the only practical way of doing that.

 

[Martin_H]

FB's requirement to initiate a livestream from their website, rather from OBS, is annoying, to say the least.

Is that definitely a requirement? I haven’t seen anything in their help pages to suggest that.

I use Restream to forward livestreams to FB without such a requirement. You may also find that monitoring from the restream website is a more robust experience.

Yes, I have used Restream and it is very good but the free version does not allow streaming to a Facebook page so I’m trying to develop my own app, basically a very slimmed-down equivalent of Restream.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Yup, my OBS usage is for House of Worship.
Facebook's Scheduled stream auto-start has recently (last couple of months) stopped working reliably.. no idea what is going on. Fortunately we know to simply bypass auto-start on /Live/Producer page and manually Go Live.. silly, but hey free service... we are getting what we are paying for

We use only Facebook, and then use Scheduled streams, as that enables a persistent URL so non-FB users can watch (without logging in, accessible on Smart TVs, Roku's, etc). The benefit of streaming to a single platform is so there is a common community for comments. I hate FB, but with most of congregation being FB users, it made way more sense to stick to that platform. I am NOT a fan, in terms of community engagement, of using multiple platforms. But I do accept there are other considerations.
In our case, with no in-person attendance for over a year, having a single stream, and getting (near) real-time feedback/comments/replies (ie to sermon questions) was crucial to keeping community together (making livestreamed service primarily a community participatory activity, vs a video to simply consume at one's convenience).

And I totally get trying to come up with a 'livestreaming for Dummies' setup. Our budget doesn't allow for more expensive streaming software, so I went with solid step-by-step documentation and OBS, with solid training, to allow livestream to take place without my presence. Our setup then gives us flexibility to cover different service types (funeral, baptism, wedding, etc) with or without displaying the liturgical service bulletin (which we normally have on-screen along with video)

Oh, and there is already a plugin to stream to multiple targets. https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/multiple-rtmp-outputs-plugin.964/

 

[dqm]

Maybe "requirement" is a bit strong. After all, Restream is able to do it (even without a persistent stream key). That said, my experience was much like yours: unable to "push" an OBS livestream to FB without in logging into FB and pressing Go Live after starting the stream from OBS.

Indeed, restream charges for the FB page feed, but it's reasonable considering other benefits like the integrated chat and stream health docks. If you're able to roll your own, I'd be interested, so keep me in the loop.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

For reference, up until recently, we used FB Scheduled Video livestreams, and auto-start did work.. and worked for last 2+ years (for the most part.. like 98%+ of the time)
In a HoW setting, I'm presuming Scheduled is fine/preferred vs an ad-hoc whenever approach. And as mentioned earlier, Scheduled livestream Events on FB has other benefits.
- So when mentioning auto-start, I suspect indicating whether for scheduled or non-scheduled video event is relevant

Now our particular livestream process, with non-persistent stream key, meant we did log into FB/Live/Producer each service to copy that service's stream key. However, after that, our interaction with Live/Producer was only to monitor and act as Digital Usher. We did NOT have to do anything to go live (it was automatic, varying from 15/20->30 seconds after scheduled start time... and per FB scheduled event rules/warning we were streaming to FB 10+ minutes in advance of that scheduled start time)

- side note, it was that reason (streaming well in advance of scheduled start time) that I asked and got the Advanced Scene Switcher OBS plugin to add a separate 'Start Recording' option as we started streaming early (as required), then used timer-based automation to kick off initial Scene sequence, countdown timer, copyright slide, etc including starting OBS Locally Recording (as I wanted the higher resolution video)​

anyway,
- what I don't know is if FB's Scheduled Event auto-start still works, but is now longer than 30+ seconds?? and as that length of time is a problem for us, it isn't something we've tested yet to see what will happen if we just wait..
- or if there is a new Event setting/something causing Scheduled Event auto-start to fail (I have looked)
- ... or just a FB bug
we currently easily work around FB's failing Auto-start, and as it is a small annoyance, haven't researched further.

If you find anything out on getting FB's Scheduled Event Auto-start to work again, we are interested

 

[Martin_H]

Maybe "requirement" is a bit strong. After all, Restream is able to do it (even without a persistent stream key). That said, my experience was much like yours: unable to "push" an OBS livestream to FB without in logging into FB and pressing Go Live after starting the stream from OBS.

Indeed, restream charges for the FB page feed, but it's reasonable considering other benefits like the integrated chat and stream health docks. If you're able to roll your own, I'd be interested, so keep me in the loop.

As far as I can find out, Facebook doesn’t support automatically starting a live video that has been created with Live Producer. It does, however, allow you to create a live video through the Graph API which suits me perfectly as I will explain below.

First of all, a bit of background to what I am doing. This is for streaming religious services. Prior to Covid, our parish didn’t have any online presence but with the introduction of lockdowns, streaming became an urgent priority; with a background in programming, I undertook most of the work on this. Up to now, I have been using Restream for a number of reasons:

• It allows streaming to both Youtube and Facebook which is what we wanted to do - the plugin for streaming to multiple RTMP servers only came out around the time I was setting this up and it was a few months later that I became aware of it.
  
  
• Using Restream makes starting and stopping videos very easy. I wanted to keep this very simple for our priest and sacristan, neither of whom is particularly computer literate. The current setup with Restream is that OBS runs all the time in the sacristy and all they have to do is click Start Streaming and Stop Streaming – they don’t have to go near either Restream or Facebook.
  
  
• It makes the titling of the videos easy. I know this can be done in Live Producer but I wanted to avoid having to use that as it is overly complex and, as noted in my previous post, it doesn’t allow automatic starting from OBS.

Whilst the present setup works well, I want to move on from it The main reason is that Our parish conducts a lot of routine liturgies – we have daily Mass, vigil Mass on a Saturday, then Sunday Mass. We also have a couple of weekly prayer services and one monthly service. Then there are irregular events like funerals, weddings, First Communion, Confirmation, etc. I am the only person set up to do this and titling videos for all these services has become quite time-consuming but I don’t really want to have to teach someone else to use Restream.

The programmer in me says that it should be possible to set up a simple web interface with a database of the routine services and titles would be automatically updated at the appropriate time. Initially, I did some work on this using the Restream API but then it struck me that if I was going to do this work anyway, then I would be just as well to do the streaming directly to Facebook and get rid of Restream and it’s associated cost (free version does not allow streaming to a FB page).

Here is the set-up I have eventually come up with:

1. Database of scheduled services on remote server (this is so that myself or others can update through a simple single-purpose web interface)
   
   
2. OBS streams to an Nginx server on the same remote server.
   
   
3. Use ffprobe (part of ffmpeg) to detect when a stream has started.
   
   
4. When the stream starts, pull the appropriate title from the database.
   
   
5. Use app on Facebook to create a new live video including the title and return the RTMP url (including streaming key).
   
   
6. Use app on Youtube to create new video.
   
   
7. Use ffmpeg to relay the nginx stream to Facebook and Youtube
   
   
8. Run ffprobe in background; when steam from Nginx stops (due to OBS stopping), stop the relay to Facebook and Youtube.

The above process seems a bit complex and could probably be simplified; I could, for example, eliminate the Nginx server by doing a ffmpeg stream direct from OBS but I have the remote server available anyway and I’m hosting the title database on it so running Nginx there is not an issue. I also want to look at some additional functionality, particularly the facility to delete videos which I find cumbersome on both Facebook and Youtube; part of this will be to set up automatic deletion of routine services – basically, we only need to store the most recent instance of a service.

I have tested each step manually and they all work so now I just have to write the application. When I get that done, I will give an update here and maybe try to make it available for people to try out. That may take a few weeks as I am busy with other stuff and this is in the "interesting" rather than "urgent" category :)

 

[Martin_H]

If you find anything out on getting FB's Scheduled Event Auto-start to work again, we are interested

Sorry, I have no experience at all in using Scheduled Events. I’ve just, however, done a lengthy reply to Lawrence_SoCal explaining the setup I am going to develop for our House of Worship application; you might find some aspects of it interesting.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

In our case, all the same liturgical services, but during lockdown, wanting to encourage sense of community, we used pre-recorded readings and hymns, announcements, etc, inter-mixed with live video of priest leading service (OBS scenes). And the priest asking questions during sermon, and monitoring FB comments, enabled an interactive service (without using Zoom or similar). This was also to make service more interactive vs consumptive.
With easing of lockdown, we still wanted to be able to focus /zoom in on the priest at the alter during communion, cantor, lecters, bell ringers, choir, etc, hence a NDI PTZ camera. And having a camera that can go from alter, to pulpit, lectern, side chapel, columbarium or baptismal font in the back, etc means having a camera operator. And once you have an operator, priest no longer involved, and some OBS Scene changes (we broadcast our service bulletin beside the video), then complete automation a nice, but not need, to have. This does require 1 trained person to run the OBS computer and camera for a service, and I realize that is a blessing to be able to have such.

With a Facebook scheduled event (quick and easy to set up), and now it is even easier to create new scheduled event, as a this-year-update allows copying a prior event title/description/settings. Creating a future Scheduled FB video event only takes 10-20 seconds. Out end-of-service activities takes a few minutes, and that includes ensuring the next couple of week's worth of services are Scheduled.
But I totally get what you are looking for in terms of someone hitting a button to start stream, then another to end it, and that is it. Fixed camera position, no changing lower thirds or other overlays (other than maybe a graphic watermark?), service bulletin, etc.

Even in that scenario, possibly using FB's Scheduled event, presuming there is a fix to the auto-start issue? I see 2 challenges in such a scenario for you
1. FB's auto-start of a Scheduled Video required streaming 10 minutes in advance, so there would be some training required to accommodate that
2. and then dealing with starting stream early, but not having YT start until time/ready (ie 10+ min later)??
or maybe not worth it.

If you figured out a work-around for non-interactive Go Live with an Ad-Hoc FB livestream using their Graph API, good for you. and that probably makes way more sense for your scenario

 

[Martin_H]

But I totally get what you are looking for in terms of someone hitting a button to start stream, then another to end it, and that is it. Fixed camera position, no changing lower thirds or other overlays (other than maybe a graphic watermark?), service bulletin, etc.

Generally speaking, we use a fixed view. I discussed this with our priest when originally setting up the streaming, offering the facility to zoom in and out at different times but he felt that would be too distracting and putting emphasis on the wrong things; for example, at the homily, the focus should be on the words he is saying, not his facial expressions. Different strokes for different folks, I guess!

There are a couple of exceptions. On Good Friday, for example, we have a Stations of the Cross service in the evening (the main service is in the afternoon). I do the streaming manually and as each station comes up, I overlay an image of that station using a slide presentation. OBS is absolutely brilliant for that sort of thing.

 

[ZacAttack]

I'm trying to get a stream that restarts every 8 hours to work on Facebook Live, but I cannot because I have to click the go live button in Facebook to start it, most of the time the stream tries to start while I'm asleep.