Computer freezing when using OBS on Google Chrome

[Allegro3355]

Please can somebody help me as I am getting a little desperate now. I am a piano teacher who gives lessons online using OBS and a program called Rock Out Loud, which is a web-based program delivered via Google Chrome.

I have a brand new Mac with 16GB of RAM, but for some reason, my laptop keeps crashing in the middle of lessons. It becomes completely unresponsive and my only option is to restart the computer. This only ever happens when I am using OBS.

I have had Activity Monitor open and at the most, it is using 20% of CPU. I have tried closing other programs, reducing the frame rate on OBS and many more things, but nothing works.

The developer of the software said he has never had anyone experience a similar issue on Chrome and is 99% it has something to do with OBS.

If anyone has any suggestions I would be very grateful.

Thank you.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

you may want to correct post title, as this has nothing, apparently, to do with using OBS Studio "on" Chrome
1. Chrome is its own Operating System
2. In this case I suspect you mean running OBS Studio on MacOS capturing a Google Chrome browser application window (technically, a completely different thing than your title, and the difference is material)

Also, don't ignore the pinned post in this forum for posting your OBS Studio log (from a Recording/streaming session of ...say 30 seconds.. at least.. stop well before a crash.)
What does the Operating System crash log indicate (I'm presuming there is one)? Have you run your OBS Studio log thru the automated Analyzer (see my .Sig)?

- I presume by 'new Mac' you mean one of the new Apple CPU based model rather than prior Intel CPU model?
if yes, OBS Studio is doing wonders, and things have improved, but OBS Studio is Free, Open-Source software, than depends on other FOSS libraries. Switching to an entirely new CPU platform takes time, and some software optimization takes YEARS (in a general sense, how that applies to this situation, I don't know). And FOSS developers don't have the resources (funding) other developers do (its the trade-off we users accept when using FOSS)

A quick Google Search of Google Chrome on MacOS shows LOTS of threads with users having issues. So, I'd start there. And search this forum
I thought Chrome browsers on MacOS doesn't run the same rendering code as on Windows and Linux?? [not worth the effort to me to research further] forked WebKit or whatever?? The joy of Apple's Walled Garden :( Sorry, not my area of expertise... and there is no reasonable way to have a conversation without getting technical, so apologies if this isn't your area, but solving your problem is likely to require getting technical

I don't use OBS Studio on MacOS, so the following are only some educated SWAG presented in the hope that a quick reply might point you in the right direction before someone more knowledgeable on MacOS, Apple CPU based systems, OBS Studio, and Google Chrome Browser can comment
- on other OS platforms, OBS Studio has option for Windows Capture vs Display (and Game?) Capture. Assuming MacOS has similar, have you tested with that (ie, switch from one method to the other)?
-
- The developers response, if accurately represented here, is silly. There are interactions of the developers code with the Chrome browser on MacOS (itself a bit of a kludge). There could be plenty wrong at this level, but not lead to a crash and most users would never notice.
And then there is the technical challenges with capturing rendered content, re-encoding, etc. with different OSes having completely different options, capabilities, limitations, and more. my point is only that this is tricky for the OBS Studio developers, and each OS has its own 'issues'. It is NOT uncommon to have to use work-arounds as Operating System vendor patches change how OBS Studio captures screen output

Good Luck

 

[Allegro555]

you may want to correct post title, as this has nothing, apparently, to do with using OBS Studio "on" Chrome
1. Chrome is its own Operating System
2. In this case I suspect you mean running OBS Studio on MacOS capturing a Google Chrome browser application window (technically, a completely different thing than your title, and the difference is material)

Also, don't ignore the pinned post in this forum for posting your OBS Studio log (from a Recording/streaming session of ...say 30 seconds.. at least.. stop well before a crash.)
What does the Operating System crash log indicate (I'm presuming there is one)? Have you run your OBS Studio log thru the automated Analyzer (see my .Sig)?

- I presume by 'new Mac' you mean one of the new Apple CPU based model rather than prior Intel CPU model?
if yes, OBS Studio is doing wonders, and things have improved, but OBS Studio is Free, Open-Source software, than depends on other FOSS libraries. Switching to an entirely new CPU platform takes time, and some software optimization takes YEARS (in a general sense, how that applies to this situation, I don't know). And FOSS developers don't have the resources (funding) other developers do (its the trade-off we users accept when using FOSS)

A quick Google Search of Google Chrome on MacOS shows LOTS of threads with users having issues. So, I'd start there. And search this forum
I thought Chrome browsers on MacOS doesn't run the same rendering code as on Windows and Linux?? [not worth the effort to me to research further] forked WebKit or whatever?? The joy of Apple's Walled Garden :( Sorry, not my area of expertise... and there is no reasonable way to have a conversation without getting technical, so apologies if this isn't your area, but solving your problem is likely to require getting technical

I don't use OBS Studio on MacOS, so the following are only some educated SWAG presented in the hope that a quick reply might point you in the right direction before someone more knowledgeable on MacOS, Apple CPU based systems, OBS Studio, and Google Chrome Browser can comment
- on other OS platforms, OBS Studio has option for Windows Capture vs Display (and Game?) Capture. Assuming MacOS has similar, have you tested with that (ie, switch from one method to the other)?
-
- The developers response, if accurately represented here, is silly. There are interactions of the developers code with the Chrome browser on MacOS (itself a bit of a kludge). There could be plenty wrong at this level, but not lead to a crash and most users would never notice.
And then there is the technical challenges with capturing rendered content, re-encoding, etc. with different OSes having completely different options, capabilities, limitations, and more. my point is only that this is tricky for the OBS Studio developers, and each OS has its own 'issues'. It is NOT uncommon to have to use work-arounds as Operating System vendor patches change how OBS Studio captures screen output

Good Luck

Thank you for your reply.

I'm not sure how to change the title of the post, so I will just leave it for now.

I have looked, but I can't find anything. I think I will stop using OBS for now and see if there are any updates which fix the issues in the future.

Thank you.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

I have looked, but I can't find anything. I think I will stop using OBS for now and see if there are any updates which fix the issues in the future.

You could, but that would likely be a mistake. OBS Studio could be the problem, but it is just a likely a MacOS or Google Chrome on MacOS related issue, and possibly a situation where you must adjust a setting(s) to get them to all play nicely together.
And if issue isn't OBS Studio, then trying a different compositing application may or may not help (just depends).