Question / Help Image Slideshow Hotkeys Not Consistent

[Catalyst9001]

OS: macOS Sierra 10.12.6

I'm running a livestream for my church and we'd like to be able to switch from the live camera feed to the sermon slides and then back to the live feed.

What I've done is set up two scenes. One scene, "Live," has just the camera feed and our church graphic in the corner. The other scene, "Notes," has an Image Slide Show with all of the slides, as well as the camera feed running under it, to keep the audio running under the slides.

I'm running the stream in Studio Mode, and I've got hotkeys set up to transition the slides. The problem is, the hotkeys only work some of the time. I'll press the hotkey while the slide is in the non-live window, and it'll switch just fine, and I'll transition it over to the live window. After a few seconds, I'll transition the Live Feed back to the live window. Then, all of a sudden, the hotkey to switch slides simply stops working. It'll work if I set the slide show to the live window, but I really want to be able to switch slides in the non-live window and simply transition between those two scenes.

It's not as if the hotkeys are NEVER working. Which makes it all the more frustrating, because it looks more like a glitch than an actual issue. I've Googled this for a while and found nothing. Is this just me having a problem?

I'd also include a log file, but bizarrely, when I click "Upload Last Log File" or "Upload Current Log File," it brings up the usual window with "Upload Successful," with NO URL. Is my computer just trash?

 

[Fenrir]

If the URL isn't showing, chances are your version of OBS is out of date. Make sure you are fully updated (to version 22.0.3) and then try to upload the log file again.

 

[Catalyst9001]

Okay. Updated, still having a similar problem. The image slide show will only transition when on the live window. Is it impossible to switch slides when the image slideshow is not in the live window?

Log file:https://obsproject.com/logs/9iLW6HLh8bTr2HP6

 

[Fenrir]

Ah, you're using Studio mode? Turn Studio mode off, I think you might just be confused as to how Studio mode is supposed to work.

 

[Catalyst9001]

Will I be able to smoothly switch between scenes if I'm not in Studio Mode? What is Studio Mode supposed to be used for? Also the hotkey don't work unless you're in Studio Mode, correct?

 

[Fenrir]

Studio mode is for editing scenes while you're live, primarily. You can still use hotkeys to switch to scenes without studio mode, and they will use the selected transition (lower right, next to the control buttons).

 

[dywilson]

I am so surprised this is still not a thing - I have seen the same issue in multiple posts and no solution. It makes absolutely no sense to prevent the slide transitions from working when the slides are previewed as opposed to when they are live. Typical use would be live on video, transition slide to next suitable slide, then go live with it, then go back to video, then transition to next slide ready for the next cue.

 

[Narcogen]

The program doesn't do this because it is absolutely assumed that any transition, like a slide, is intended for the audience to see. OBS is assuming that the transition between slides in a slideshow are to be treated the same way as transitions between scenes, and this applies as well in studio mode.

If you run a slide transition on a slideshow in the preview window... only you saw it. The assumption here is that you return from the video to the last used slide, then use a transition to the next slide, so the audience sees the transition. That might not be important if all you're doing is a cut, because there's no difference between advancing the slideshow and doing a cut, but it does matter for other kinds of transitions

I can see how this doesn't fit your use case but I think it might be better served by capturing a slideshow run by other software (powerpoint, libreoffice, faststone) or, depending on the number of slides, just having each image be separate scenes, or perhaps sources in a scene where those sources can be activated/deactivated by a hotkey that does work in studio mode.

 

[Accularian]

I transition slides in the preview window all the time, not just when the slide scene is live. This has always been the behavior for me and it makes sense because we need to bring up the next slide in the que before we switch live to it. I have always been able to advance and reverse slides before I transition them to live. But... it is very buggy. Sometimes my HotKeys are completely ignored other times they work perfectly as expected. Sometimes I have to click another source, click outside a window, click another scene, etc. before the HotKeys start working again. Sometime I need to restart OBS all together and sometimes even the computer. If all is working at launch, it seems to continue working throughout the show. System: Mac OSX Big Sur.

 

[robin_pens]

@Accularian I have also been having issues with both hot keys and slide shows on Mac. I made several posts last year with no solution offered. I'd hoped the latest update would solve this, but it hasn't.

I run 2 machines (specs in my signature), a 2011 iMac on High Sierra - this machine has no issues with hot keys/slide shows. I also run a 2013 Macbook Pro on Catalina, which is giving me the issues....

1. Slide shows won't play slides in the desired order, no matter the settings. Sometimes they will work if I add all images rather than a folder, but this behaviour is inconsistent too, as per this post:

Bug Report - Image Slide Show by Folder is Always Random

When I set the Image Slide Show source and direct it to a folder and deselect the Randomize Playback, it still is random. The workaround is to add individual images. Is this a known bug?

obsproject.com

2. Hot keys are temperamental, as per this post:

Question / Help - HotKeys stopped working with an update of OBS

Anyone else having issues with hotkeys not working? They just stopped on my MacBook pro a couple of weeks ago when I updated my OBS to the latest version. I tried to roll back the update but HotKeys still not working.

obsproject.com

This is infuriating and means that I'm forced to use an even older, less powerful machine for my streams until I can find a fix.

I hope this helps shed some more light on an issue which appears to be affecting several users.

 

[WhenWillThisAllEnd?]

Wow... here we are in 2025 and this issue still persists. Are there no Devs left who work on the code for this? Seems like it's been broken for years now. This is why 'freeware' never took off. You get what you pay for. Seeing ALL same issues reported here on my latest M4 Mac Mini. Seems like these issues are not related to hardware but the actual code.

I solved the random play issue by NOT using the "Add directory" function. Put files in individually and in either numeric or alphabetically named order. Then they always play in order.

My issue is the Hot Keys sometimes work, and sometimes don't. I haven't found a reliable workaround.

 

[WhenWillThisAllEnd?]

Hey all.... check this out! I'm seeing now that SEPARATE Next / Previous Hot Key options are assigned to EACH different Slide Show! Ok. So in the Hot key selection window if you put in the Filter to search by 'slides' it takes you to the FIRST one in alphabetical order, which has a header of one of your Slide show names. So if you are now working on a differently named one, changes there won't affect the one you're currently working on. So we need to search by the name of our Slide show, or just make sure we are looking at the correct one!

AND... I just discovered something else; if you have ANOTHER Slide show... and it is shown... THEN OTHER SLIDE SHOWS WILL NOT PLAY! So... only ONE slide show active and showing at a time.

After following the above, my slide show is working again, meaning I can advance and go back with my manual Hot keys!!! Praise Jesus!!!!

 

[WhenWillThisAllEnd?]

Hey all.... check this out! I'm seeing now that SEPARATE Next / Previous Hot Key options are assigned to EACH different Slide Show! Ok. So in the Hot key selection window if you put in the Filter to search by 'slides' it takes you to the FIRST one in alphabetical order, which has a header of one of your Slide show names. So if you are now working on a differently named one, changes there won't affect the one you're currently working on. So we need to search by the name of our Slide show, or just make sure we are looking at the correct one!

AND... I just discovered something else; if you have ANOTHER Slide show... and it is shown... THEN OTHER SLIDE SHOWS WILL NOT PLAY! So... only ONE slide show active and showing at a time.

After following the above, my slide show is working again, meaning I can advance and go back with my manual Hot keys!!! Praise Jesus!!!!

I tried to make an edit but I guess was past the 10 minute deadline. So here is what I wanted to correct:

AND... I just discovered something else; if you have ANOTHER Slide show... and it is shown... THEN OTHER SLIDE SHOWS WILL NOT RESPOND TO THE HOT KEYS! So... only ONE slide show active and showing at a time is the secret!!

 

[WhenWillThisAllEnd?]

I tried to make an edit but I guess was past the 10 minute deadline. So here is what I wanted to correct:

AND... I just discovered something else; if you have ANOTHER Slide show... and it is shown... THEN OTHER SLIDE SHOWS WILL NOT RESPOND TO THE HOT KEYS! So... only ONE slide show active and showing at a time is the secret!!

But wait... there's more!

Hot keys can ONLY be applied to ONE Slide show at a time! If you later create a different Slide show by a different name, you MUST remove the Hot key's from the previous Slide show assignment, in order to use the same keys in the new Slide show.

 

[AaronD]

Wow... here we are in 2025 and this issue still persists. Are there no Devs left who work on the code for this? Seems like it's been broken for years now. This is why 'freeware' never took off. You get what you pay for.

• Good
• Fast
• Cheap

Pick two. Deal with the third.

For OBS:
Yes, it takes a certain amount of technical ingenuity to make it work *well*. Sometimes you even need to switch operating systems because the one you're presently on doesn't give the existing code what it needs to do what you want. (I use Ubuntu Studio Linux) Or create your own workaround to make that function work a different way. If the code were different, then maybe it would work the "easy" way, but it is what it is. And people *have* made it sing for them.

My focus is more on audio than anything else, so I've made a few suggestions in that area. To one of them, one of the devs responded to the effect that it's been years since they had an actual audio guy, and it doesn't look like they're getting one anytime soon. So yes, it could very well be that <insert functionality here> *doesn't* have someone that can address it, and so it stays as-is rather than break it further by a naive implementation.