Deleting old scene collections may cause audio to stop working

[Tom Williams]

We develop new scenes for each week at church and have created a python tool to integrate the base scenes and setup with the content that's new for the Sunday worship. The output of the tool is a json file. It essentially is a merge tool where we capture the base scenes by exporting from the system and just merge in the new stuff. This has been working for months and has made Sunday morning setup a breeze. Every once in a while, we go back a delete the old scenes from prior weeks. In the past, we've done this prior to shutting down the system on Sunday.

Yesterday, we brought up OBS and cleaned up the old collections and then imported the current week collect. This caused a problem where OBS no longer had input from the default audio input. Somehow, it was still trying to be connected to the deleted collection and wouldn't let go. After several minutes of trying multiple fixes, it was discovered that if you go to Mic/Aux->Properties and just let that window pop up (no changes required) that the situation clears itself and OBS now has audio again. Shutting down OBS and bringing it back up again did not work. Shutting the system down and bringing it back up did not work. This was amazingly weird. We thought that it must be something in the new json file, but that was not the case because once this weird condition was cleared, there were no problems with any of the current or prior scene collections.

We now have a simple fix for the problem and are adding it to the problem solver document for the computer operators, but I thought that a larger audience may want to know about this problem and the resolution.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

I've found that Windows 10 audio systems, and specifically device enumeration, can cause issues (especially of late). On my system with Realtek audio software, I've found I occasionally have to check that sound devices hasn't changed (and they do.. ugh)
Yes, making sure Audio property points to expected device in OBS has been part of my regular check recently (OBS and sound software didn't change, just OS updates... thanks M$ ;^)
in OBS v26.1.1 when selecting an Audio Input in your Source list, a Device identifier appears between video and the docked controls. Make sure Device is as expected/desired

My church live stream setup is about 30 scenes. Each week, as we alternate from pre-recorded music, prelude, postlude, hymns, readings, etc, and live video, I optimized pre-recorded video to fit/fill frame alongside Service Bulletin, so I don't automate the updating of the pre-recorded content. Many of our scenes are essentially duplicates, but follows service order so makes livestream manageable.
I could simply make sure each video follows a standard naming convention, but as these are volunteers, the video orientation (portrait vs landscape), subject position/framing, etc varies every time. So each week, I manually update our (typically) 9 videos, adjust the transform, confirm our Service Bulletin is correct (and I almost always have to make fixes)

As our scenes follow liturgy, large changes only happen seasonally or for special services. I'm looking forward to going back to live in-person services (probably in a month or two, with restrictions) but once live, and no pre-recorded content to deal with OBS becomes SO much simpler for us... a opening/countdown, then live video scene, and a goodbye/thanks for joining us a nd copyright slides/scenes...easy peasy