No OBS audio out

[GAC123]

I'm running OBS 30.1.2 on a Win11 machine. For whatever reason, I have no audio output from any mp3 Media Source from OBS. It shows playing on the OBS mixer just no audio output. The mp3 files play correctly through Windows Media player. This used to work with prior OS and OBS versions the last time that I used it (about a year ago). I cannot figure out what has changed. I've tried various Windows and OBS settings with no luck.

Any ideas?

 

[Harold]

Did you validate your audio monitoring settings for the media sources?

 

[GAC123]

Harold, Thank you for your response. What do you mean by "validate your audio monitoring settings" ? When I check properties of the media source I see nothing that seems pertinent.

 

[Graphitt_Br]

Hello guys, I'm with same problem... When you say "validate your audio monitoring settings" is checked in "Audio Advanced Properties" on the option " Monitoring and send Audio"?

 

[Skullbone]

I'm running OBS 30.1.2 on a Win11 machine. For whatever reason, I have no audio output from any mp3 Media Source from OBS. It shows playing on the OBS mixer just no audio output. The mp3 files play correctly through Windows Media player. This used to work with prior OS and OBS versions the last time that I used it (about a year ago). I cannot figure out what has changed. I've tried various Windows and OBS settings with no luck.

Any ideas?

Okay, I registered here just for this because it has been one of the bigger OBS thorns I've dealt with lol.

I've had this issue over the past year as well. My audio mixer shows active and my audience can hear alerts and other audible features, but it does not come through for me as the broadcaster. It's common enough that I habitually run checks after every update to ensure OBS is working properly before going live.

I haven't found a consistent troubleshoot that addresses this problem. However, I cycle through few things until it seems to magically fix itself. It's frustrating and sometimes I have to cycle repeatedly for almost an hour. Here are the things I do:

-The most obvious-- Open and close OBS, sometimes "run as administrator"
-swap scene collections back and forth
-Open Advanced Audio Properties in you mixer, check/uncheck the 'Active Sources Only' box, while switching between scenes.
****Open Settings, under Audio, change your Monitoring Device, hit okay, then switch back to whatever you had it as, then change scene collection.

^ this last option is what seemed to be the magic fix this time. I wrote it down exactly as I did it. The next time this happens, this will be my first step, and I am pretty certain it won't work lol. Anyway, until someone helps identify a simpler solution, this is the best I got.

So those are basically the things I do in varying order until the problem is solved. I hope someone can offer better insight than me.

 

[LyallD]

I don't know if it's related but last Saturday I had a very similar issue. Although it had worked perfectly the previous weekend, I was unable to get any audio to work from the USB audio interface (Focusrite Scarlet 18i8) on both a Win 10 desktop (and same when I tried my Win 11 gaming laptop), both running the latest OBS 30.1.2. The interface was showing up as expected in OBS advanced audio properties, and everything else we checked revealed nothing obvious (e.g sources were selected correctly and the Focusrite control app could see audio in the Focusrite interface, and Windows Device manager for USB and audio devices showed nothing obviously abnormal).

Strangely a separate NDI audio source worked fine, just nothing coming in via USB. Doing the very latest Windows update from the current week didn't help, so after trying everything else I finally rolled back two previous Windows updates (to the one before 9th June) and the problem magically disappeared, with audio working fine again.

That doesn't explain much about what the exact problem is, but does suggest that the Windows update a fortnight ago has done something to the OS or drivers that stops OBS getting audio even though an audio device is clearly recognised by both Windows and OBS. I'm not at the location of the system at present, but it's been suggested to me that we should drill into the Windows Control Panel/Sounds to see if the input is listed there, and if so, to check Properties/Recording and ensure the check box "listen to this device" is checked.

 

[Bernd Uhlmann]

This defect existed in earlier OBS version, but in an interim version it apparently was fixed. Now the problem is back with the latest version. I tested the issue with different MP3 audio files. I suspect, but have not tested audio file formats other than MP3.

This appears to be a defect with the OBS Media Player. The defect occurs when using the Media Player with a local MP3 audio file. I understand that this is using the “ffmpeg” media player.

Typically, you will load a local audio file to OBS as a “Media Source”. If you also want to listen/monitor the audio source, you need to enable monitoring via a windows output device using OBS “Advanced Audio Setting” (in Audio Mixer click on the source’s 3-dots)

Everything works as intended if the audio file have NO cover image (i.e. MP3-Tag ID3 frame 'PIC' or 'APIC'). MP3 Tags can be edited, and images removed using Mp3tag.exe https://www.mp3tag.de/en/ .

Any MP3 file with a cover image Tag causes a set of issues:

The song starts normally and continues until one of the following occurs:

• If the scene is briefly changed AND if the source property “Restart playback when source becomes active” is ticked, then, after returning to the scene with the song, the song will no longer be monitored.
• If the end of the song is reached and if the song is supposed to loop, it will loop, but it will not be monitored for the first single looping.
• If you interfere with the source via the media control, i.e. by using the media slider in any way, the song will no longer be monitored.

If monitoring the song ended unintentionally due to any of the above issues, it can be manually restarted via

• “Advanced Audio Setting”, stop monitor and start monitoring again, or
• Simply hide the Source briefly and show/unhide the source again.

Strange side effect: monitoring a looping audio source containing a cover image will stop monitoring at the first loop but monitoring will restart by itself after one single unmonitored loop.