Question / Help Max Audio Buffer Reached

[Clintus]

Hi there. For the past couple of weeks I've started to encounter an audio issue that happens almost every time I stream. All audio, mic and all stream audio via GoXLR, and my game audio coming in via an Elgato capture card (2nd PC), turns into a robot voice. Only way to resolve it is to restart OBS (kill the stream) or to kill the "Windows Audio Device Graph Isolation" in the task manager. This resets all my audio coming in so I have to restart my GoXLR software and restart any other audio I have playing, but I don't have to restart the stream.

When I check the logs via the analyzer it says the critical error is "Max Audio Buffer Reached". When I look into the logs I see this line:
09:11:27.676: Max audio buffering reached!
09:11:27.676: adding 618 milliseconds of audio buffering, total audio buffering is now 960 milliseconds (source: Sony)

Sony would be the camera I use for my webcam, however there is no audio coming in from the camera, I disabled it in the camera. I've also muted and removed that audio track from the sources. I've streamed using both X.264 and NVENC, different bit rates, and different resolutions. My CPU usage never goes above 35% in OBS and never above 70% in over all CPU usage in the task manager. So when it says "This is an indicator of very high system load" I'm not sure where to look since CPU usage is low, especially when I stream via NVENC (GPU).

Thoughts? Any additional info you need let me know. Log file attached. Thanks!

 

[FATguyFUNtime]

I'm having a very similar issue and seeing that same error message. Is there any fix to this at all ???

 

[cnunes73ucb]

Same to me...

16:19:36.030: Max audio buffering reached!
16:19:36.030: adding 1021 milliseconds of audio buffering, total audio buffering is now 1044 milliseconds (source: FILMADORA)

Did anyone find any solution?

 

[cnunes73ucb]

Let's go to VMIX, it doesn't happen there.
Here support does not answer this problem that has been around for a long time and nobody solves it!!
Terrible

 

[Dj_Mayne]

was there ever a fix for this issue? Having the same issue and can't find solution.

 

[bpodkowa]

To be honest, I'm starting to get a feeling we'll never get a proper answer to this. I've been trying to figure this issue out for several weeks now. Here's what I've found:
- there are posts reporting the audio buffer maxing out going back several (4?) years, with no reports of the issue being successfully solved
- the issue appears on both of my machines, one of which is running a 1920x Threadripper, Radeon VII and 32GB RAM - OBS is barely using any resources and it still happens
- it happens with Media Sources, both with local files and RTMP streams. Local files regularly cause ~30-60ms to be added to the buffer, regardless of codec or size (I have not tested every audio and video codec possible, but so far have seen it with a of different files)
- I've found it especially dangerous with RTMP sources - when they disconnect/reconnect the addition to the buffer is in the ~500ms range, and within 2-3 disconnects (which if someone's connection is having problems can happen within a few minutes) the buffer gets maxed out causing all audio to become incredibly distorted and useless. Not just from that source - in fact, I had audio from that particular source muted throughout all of this. OBS had to be restarted to fix - in the middle of a stream. HOWEVER, the issue was not audible in regular monitoring (which sounded fine) - only in the final stream on YouTube and when monitoring through NDI (which I tend to do as OBS monitoring isn't consistent with final output)
- Streamlabs OBS has the same issue

Between this issue floating around for years with no concrete solution, or even reliable workaround, and the fact that it can cause audio to crash mid-stream I am getting quite frustrated. OBS is an excellent program and I'm grateful to the devs for all their hard work, but an issue this serious that has not been addressed for years is making me seriously consider looking for an alternate streaming solution. If this is a deep issue that is partially (or even fully) caused by something outside of OBS (e.g. something in Windows), can we at least get the options to monitor the audio buffer during the stream (same way dropped frames are monitored) and a setting to increase it's size?

 

[MrsDoubtfire]

Hi All, i seem to have been plagued by this lately aswell. logs attached many sources many scenes but you can see it goes pear shaped after that. I have switched to VLC instead of media source and that seems to have resolved the issue. Any thoughts?

 

[MrsDoubtfire]

forgot too upload logs

 

[par_t]

Bumping this as I’m having the same issue

 

[TheLMart]

I've seen the same messages in my logs, and am experiencing audio completely dropping out of my stream. @obsstudio - do you have any advice?

 

[davemac]

+1, same issue with RTMP input

 

[Chaemirix]

If you're having this issue on a Dual PC set-up, I've found a work-around that's been working for me so far-- Just wanted to post it because I spent WAY too long troubleshooting this issue.

If you're sending Audio from the gaming PC to the streaming PC thought a capture card, go to the Audio Mixer section in OBS, select the cog on your Capture Card's audio, and choose "Advanced Audio Properties."
From there, under "Audio Monitoring" select "Monitor Only (mute output)". This will mirror the audio to your primary output device (usually your Desktop speakers.)

You'll see both bars active in OBS, but only one of them is actually capturing audio for the stream, so there shouldn't be an echo.

This solution has been working for me for a few streams, and when my audio does crash, I can enable this post-crash and it'll start working. Only thing I need to change is this method is ~10db quieter than the raw input.

 

[davemac]

Have people still been getting issues with the latest OBS release 26.0.2 ? Although my case is hard to reproduce, very early findings are that this version recovers the audio after it drops out - I'd previously been using OBS 25. My scenario was audio dropping out of output after bad/intermittent rtmp feed, then still no audio after the connection resumes.

 

[Steve Seguin]

It's happen a lot with my OBS.Ninja users and OBS. I get many users here still reporting audio drop outs with OBS; the last OBS error log I was sent from a user reported "Max audio buffering reached".

The hard part for me is that these users often don't realize it happens and lose hours of recordings. Sometimes it happens when they try to stream via RTMP and recording to file at the same time. Other times it happens when there is a sudden change to an audio source.

It's lost me quite a few users at this point.

 

[davemac]

It's happen a lot with my OBS.Ninja users and OBS. I get many users here still reporting audio drop outs with OBS; the last OBS error log I was sent from a user reported "Max audio buffering reached".

The hard part for me is that these users often don't realize it happens and lose hours of recordings. Sometimes it happens when they try to stream via RTMP and recording to file at the same time. Other times it happens when there is a sudden change to an audio source.

It's lost me quite a few users at this point.

Steve - what version of OBS?

 

[MichaelB]

I see this also on a completely idle (no recording, no streaming) system, with CPU, GPU and Memory all under 20%. Nothing other than OBS running. I just have an NDI camera and NDI audio source active. I walk away for a few hours, come back and look at the log file. OBS log reports adding audio buffering at 11:54am, then 12:23pm, then 2:24pm. What gives?

 

[eplejuice]

bumping to say I have the same problem.

 

[Steve Seguin]

Steve - what version of OBS?

I haven't gotten a complaint from users this week on this front, so that's nice, but I did get a user mentioning the audio was lagging behind the video by a second or so just a week ago. A restart to OBS fixes this issue usually. I'm wondering if this is a CEF timestamp bug related issue tho. Not sure off hand whether it was OBS v25 or v26. I do still get users with more complex OBS v26 live shows crashing quite a bit (OBS locks up), but I don't know if this is anything to do with the browser source, audio buffers, or their complex websocket integrations. I do tell these users to submit their error logs.

 

[Bbones]

Having this issue too. I’ve spent many days trying to fix it. Experienced it for months. No fix - yet. We all need to share more information. Maybe there’s a common thing between all of us experiencing this issue.

I too use a sony A7 camera with audio disabled (through my camera’s settings) in place of a webcam. Audio issue happened both before & after disabling the audio through my camera. I use an audio technica 2020 mic, presonus usb 96 audio interfacer connected to pc via USB. Have not experienced this issue to my knowledge outside of OBS.

This audio problem has been horrible & ruined many streams & footage. Been using OBS since 2015 but this issue is a dead end. If we dont take steps to fix this issue like start sharing info the only option is to use other broadcast software.

 

[edwing]

bump this thread. I have the same problem.
Video Source: Elgato CamLink 4K
Audio Source: HyperX Quadcast
The audio bitrate is all aligned. I tried turn off all audio offset as well, the problem still pops up after a few minutes of recording.
I think this issue exists for many than a few years already.