Question / Help Major frame drops, but only while streaming to Twitch

[Shirdel]

Hi guys,

I'm in a really unusual situation. Over the past week, I've had occasional frame drops while streaming, that completely kill the watchability of my stream. The symptoms are always the same; I'll have a period with no issues or drops at all, which lasts anything from one minute to an hour and a half, and then I will drop massive amounts of frames. It can last from about 10 seconds to 5 minutes, and then it'll be fine again until the next time it starts dropping. Lowering my bitrate doesn't help, unless if I lower it to the point where it's completely unwatchable, which naturally I don't want to do as this has started happening for no apparent reason.

As I mentioned in the title, if I try streaming to a different service such as Hitbox, I get no frame drops or issues at all.

Here's a list of the other options I've tried to fix the issue:

• Streaming on both OBS and XSplit;
• Trying to stream to different servers in different regions;
• Disabling/Enabling the Reduce Stream Delay option on Twitch's settings;
• Disabling/Enabling low latency mode on OBS;
• Adding a 10 second stream delay while streaming;
• Restarting my router and trying a second router I have;
• Disabling my computer's firewall.

None of the above have made any change whatsoever. I've uploaded a log to help. If anyone can figure out what on earth might be causing this, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

 

[Shirdel]

Any ideas? :(

 

[Harold]

Post a screenshot showing the results from http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/tech-support/478845-twitchtest-twitch-bandwidth-tester please.

 

[Boildown]

14:42:01: Using RTMP service: Twitch
14:42:01: Server selection: rtmp://live-ams.twitch.tv/app
14:42:01: Interface: Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (802.11, 97 mbps)

String a cable and stop using wireless.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/what-i...-operation-and-how-does-it-affect-your-router

What this means is that you can receive interference from anyone else using wifi near to you, even a device in a car passing on the street by your house, or a neighbor, or the mailman. And that interference will mess up a constantly-streaming upload more than just about any other application, because you're constantly transmitting. Streaming video out is particularly poorly suited to wifi connections. Use wired for streaming.

 

[Shirdel]

@Boildown, I tried using a LAN cable, no difference, still have the same occasional frame drops. The fact I've been able to stream with no issues for two years and only suddenly start to get random frame drops shouldn't have anything to do with the fact I stream wirelessly. It's also totally impractical for me as my router is on a different floor of my house to where I stream from. I don't really want to have a cable trailing round my stairs :/

@Harold, Here's the results of the test. I live in the UK, for clarification.

The tests do look fine, as far as I can tell. 1800kbps is the rough speed I was able to stream at before the random frame drops. I suspect the reason why I get slightly higher bitrates to the US servers is because at the time I did these tests, it was graveyard hours for the US.

 

[Harold]

None of those results are usable for streaming. The quality values are WAY too low.

 

[Shirdel]

@Harold, That would make sense, due to the fact I drop frames regardless of which server I pick. Again, a week ago I had no issues at all.

 

[FerretBomb]

Network fluctuation is a thing, and your ISP may have altered something on their end. You might also be stuck with a bad route just due to the whims of the upstream providers.

Be aware that it is recommended not to use more than 3/4 of the upload speed listed on the TBT to allow for net variance, while playing a single-player non-networked game. Networked games require more of a cut-down as the game's net code needs some bandwidth too, and can impact your streaming throughput.
Also, your audio bitrate is NOT counted in the bitrate you set; that's just the video bitrate. So be sure to add the audio rate as well, when figuring your total throughput needs and limits.

All that said, the Twitch ingests HAVE been having issues for the last few weeks. But with those TBT results, it may not be the cause of your problem (normally you want a 90+ quality rated server, and 80 is considered 'flaky'; you have mid-30s, so it's a bit surprising that you're only getting minimal framedrops).

 

[Shirdel]

Oh yes, I know that the audio bitrate is part of it. That's set to 160kbps, which means I usually stream at 1760 in all. The thing is, it's been almost a year since I've had any kind of frame issues at all. It would be rare for me to even drop one frame usually.

My gut feeling is that my ISP has changed something on their end, and I have posted on their forum as well, but just in case there was anything else I wanted to post here. It could be a Twitch server issue, but the fact I get drops with every server makes me think that's totally implausible.

 

[Cryonic]

Well it could be that your ISP changed something in the network between the house and the first provider server.
First: you generally want more upload than 1,8mbit/s for streaming.
Second: kick your ISP daily until you are sure that there is no routing problem to the suggested twitch server. Provide them all information you need: ports, IPs for all servers, check for packet loss, do some long tests to make sure that the bandwith is stable.
Third: change your ISP. Sounds harsh, i know. But this is your tool, just like a screwdriver. If it doesnt do what you want, you change it.

Looks like you live in UK or somewhere close to UK. I know you guys have some issues with ISPs over there, but you should have a decent selection of plans and 5-6 different providers.

And yes, twitch servers had some problems here and there. The best way to check that is their twitter account: https://twitter.com/TwitchSupport

Check that before starting the stream, so you always know what to expect, they are really fast at posting issues (not fixing them! just the info :P )

 

[Shirdel]

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking. The connection I'm on right now is supposed to be 2Mbps upload, which has been enough for me until I've been getting these drops.

Right now, I'm stuck in a contract with my ISP for the time being, but when that finishes I am very likely to be changing. I'm trying to bug them to get the issue fixed since that does seem to be what is. Thanks everyone for the help!

 

[Cryonic]

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking. The connection I'm on right now is supposed to be 2Mbps upload, which has been enough for me until I've been getting these drops.

Right now, I'm stuck in a contract with my ISP for the time being, but when that finishes I am very likely to be changing. I'm trying to bug them to get the issue fixed since that does seem to be what is. Thanks everyone for the help!

And a simple upgrade to a somewhat decent upload is not possible? They usually offer multiple plans and you can change them how you like it, it just resets your contract duration.

 

[Shirdel]

Unfortunately, haven't got the money for that big of an upgrade. Besides, what I have was working for me perfectly fine up until last week. I mostly stream PS1/2 games, I don't need a higher bitrate, I just want a stable one.

 

[Shirdel]

Well, after some back-and-forth messages with my ISP, they launched an investigation into my connection, and I ultimately got this reply:

"Our network team have said that this doesn't appear to be an issue with our network. data is leaving our network without any issues. The problem appears to be at Twitch's end so this is something that they would need to look into."

So, what are my options now?

 

[Harold]

Demand more detailed information about what they think the problem is in order to be able to bring it to twitch support.

 

[Shirdel]

Well, here's an update:

I continued to ask my ISP for help and they ultimately sent an engineer round my house. I explained the issue to him and he changed my phone cable so that my phone and internet cables are split by the box in my house rather than with a DSL microfilter; he claimed that would fix the issue, but it hasn't.

I've contacted Twitch with details about the issue a total of three times over the past couple of weeks, and I haven't received any reply yet. I honestly don't know what to do at this point as it seems almost certain that there's some kind of routing issue with the connection that isn't my fault or my ISP's fault, but I don't know any way to get through to somebody at Twitch.

 

[Shirdel]

New update:

I received a reply from Twitch, and apparently the reason why I have frame drops isn't because my bitrate isn't going down, it's because it's randomly shooting UP to 15000kbps at periods of time.

They sent me a graph of one of my streams showing where it shoots up:

Again, I have no idea what could be causing this as I have OBS/XSplit set to a CONSTANT bitrate of 1600kbps + 160kbps audio, and my max upload is supposed to be 2Mbps.

Any ideas?

 

[FerretBomb]

This would either be your ISP or an intermediary routing point, quite possibly doing throughput slicing/shaping or weighted prioritization. Buffering up packets to the server and sending them as throughput becomes available at a higher rate, so the overall speed-over-time averages out, but it does not maintain a constant throughput.

Think of it like a conveyor belt. It's supposed to carry 2 boxes every second, ending up with 120 boxes at the end after a minute.
What's happening at some point is that it's sending 4 boxes one second, then zero the next. Still get 120 at the end, but it's not a smooth flow. Even worse, with that kind of spike it's like sending 12 boxes one second, then sending zero for the next five. Still 120 after a minute, looking at overall flow over time at the minute level.

This is actually the same problem with speedtest.net; it looks at total throughput over a set timeframe, and not minimum constant throughput.

The biggest PITA is that it could be your ISP doing this, OR it could be someone upstream in your routing path doing it. So it may not be anything you can do a thing about, aside from extreme measures like getting a VPN host to forcibly change your own routing path. And that isn't cheap for one that doesn't suck, given the throughput needs that streaming has.

 

[Shirdel]

Thanks for that reply, that makes a lot of sense. I think my ISP has been known to use 'burst mode' in certain situations, which is what this sounds like.

I have contacted my ISP, so hopefully they'll be able to fix the issue.