Bug Report Extremely Weird Issue with OBS Running

[flavored]

Hey guys,

A few days ago I've started having an extremely weird issue with OBS on one of my pcs, am at a loss of what to do. It's probably not directly obs related, but I'm hoping you could help me pinpoint the cause.

So, the symptom:
With OBS running (on either stream or preview) some fullscreen running games (Fallout 3, New Vegas, SWTOR, ArcheAge) and even some Windowed mode running ones (ArcheAge for example) just _freeze_, like that, similar to what happens in your average fridge only in computer terms. Other games (League of Legends, Star Wars the old republic) run and stream fine in windowed mode. Once again: only games freeze, obs keeps recording and system keeps running. Without having obs record or preview the games run just fine. I've even disabled encoding in preview - games still freeze. Hell, I even removed every scene and games STILL freeze if OBS is in preview or "start streaming" mode.

So far I tried: burning my processor with Prime95 - stable. Testmem86 on my RAM - stable. Swapped harddrives. Tried every version of OBS down to May. Overclocked and de-overclocked. Reinstalled about 5 different videocard drivers down to 2 years old. NO EFFECT. Killed every non-critical process, removed all running software - no effect.

So could someone please tell me WHAT could be the case here?? Once again, if obs is just running without being put on preview or start streaming - all fine. Games work, apps work, system stable. Once I run a fullscreen game with obs streaming - boom, freeze of the game. I triple checked everything - temperatures stable, load is stable. I'm at a loss, I don't have a luxury of a clean reinstall right now just to see if that fixes the problem.

Attaching a log file of the most recent "session" but there is nothing on it (because it's the games that crash, obs I can close normally and it keeps encoding).

 

[R1CH]

Have you tried using game capture? Also, do windowed mode games also freeze?

On a related note, it looks like you're using a capture card, which will offer little benefit and actually hurt performance if you're running games on the same system. Capture cards are meant for capturing output from a game running elsewhere, eg a 2nd PC or on a console. Give things a try without it.

 

[flavored]

Tried it, removed everything - changes nothing. Just having OBS running on "start streaming" or "preview" makes games freeze. Even if it's just a scene with just a static image without even capturing games themselves. Even if encoding is disabled on preview, even if preview output is disabled.

What I'm really looking for is ideas on where to check for the problem. Seems that OBS itself is not the primary cause of the problem, but I'm at a loss of what to further check as I think I've pretty much overturned it all

 

[hilalpro]

Just having OBS running on "start streaming" or "preview" makes games freeze.

What do you mean "makes games freeze"? you can't alt tab back? do you hear the sound also freeze ? what resolution do you run your games at and have you tried changing all your amd catalyst settings back to default?.

 

[flavored]

Exactly that - image stops, sound goes into infinite loop or stops too. I can alttab to see the game "not responding". Resolution seems irrelevant, tried whatever. Catalyst settings are at their default.

 

[Lain]

To be clear, even if you have no capture source (window/monitor/game capture) in your scene, it'll still cause such a thing to happen?

If so, I've never heard of that before for any user unfortunately.

 

[flavored]

Yes, as long as OBS is running in start stream or preview, even if there are no sources in the scenes games will hang. This is seriously driving me insane right now, I don't know what else to try.

 

[hilalpro]

Yeah totally sound unusual. Close obs and the game install http://download.microsoft.com/download/ ... redist.exe then restart your computer.

 

[Lain]

I'd probably back up all important files, wipe the drive, and reinstall windows, but that's just me. Sometimes there's nothing like a fresh clean system that hasn't been tainted by all the unnecessary software and drivers that accumulate over time.

 

[flavored]

I'd probably back up all important files, wipe the drive, and reinstall windows, but that's just me. Sometimes there's nothing like a fresh clean system that hasn't been tainted by all the unnecessary software and drivers that accumulate over time.

I guess that's pretty much the only thing left to try right now ;(

The thing is outside of OBS system works just perfect - it's fast, all studio apps I need perform well, no crashes or hangs.

 

[flavored]

Just an update:

I did a complete wipe and reinstall, grabbed a fresh hd and installed an absolutely clean copy of windows 7 ultimate. But nope, no effect. Still the same problem: with obs running on preview/start streaming the games would hang. Without obs they run fine.

What kind of problem can it be? Some windows update incompatibility? Hardware issue? I've already gone through most of my hardware and it seems to be stable, at least overnight tests with prime95, memtest and different video card tools that pump it to 100% load did not manage to hang the system. I'm also running on an absolutely fresh install. And the thing is I've been using this setting to stream for quite a period of time, without running into any big problems up till these days. I don't know what is up :(

 

[Lain]

Oh jeeze, well it's good that you did, because it's good to do a clean install every few months. However, if that's the case, and you tried it without any other software installed after reinstalling windows, then it definitely narrows it down to hardware. (Also, reinstalling windows doesn't cost anything to do so it's better to have made sure that it wasn't the cause first before checking hardware)

I feel bad for even suggesting that, but honestly that's what I would have done myself, and I do it on a semi-regular basis. I'm sorry you had to go through all that though.

 

[flavored]

You have nothing to apologize for, I should be thanking you for such a great software! But I do need to root out the the issue, as it's preventing me from streaming :). Maybe you could elaborate on what exactly happens when obs starts in preview/streaming mode? What does it use, why would it make applications that otherwise work fine freeze to death?:) (I don't like anything freezing to death, I need it to stay warm and healthy).

Just as a reminder: even without any scenes or hooks AND even with encoding disabled it still causes crashes.

 

[Lain]

Crashes or freezes? Even when you start it up with a completely blank scene? I'm really starting to think it's hardware or something then, I just almost never hear of any sort of thing.

Could you also do me one favor? Could you go into advanced settings, check the "Disable encoding while previewing" checkbox, and then try turning on preview and see if it still occurs?

 

[flavored]

Yes, like I said above, it freezes the games even with that checkbox enabled. The first thing I thought that it was some problem with encoding so I checked that one and tried again, but no luck.

 

[hilalpro]

Hmm weird, have you tried pinning OBS.exe and the game process to separate cores by managing their processor affinity from task manager ?

 

[flavored]

The problem here wasn't OBS related, it was the faulty PSU. Replacing PSU fixed the problem.