Question / Help OBS is pissing me off. Long recordings always corrupted

[Crazylegsmurphy]

I'm really getting annoyed.

I've been trying to make a long recording for days and regardless of what settings I use, if the video gets over a certain length it becomes corrupted.

No settings seem to help. No remuxing works. All I have in the end is a video that will play, but can't fast forward or anything. I'm sure the recordings aren't even complete, but I haven't bothered watching the 2 hour video to find out.

There has to be a solution for this. I've read this has been happening to many others, but no one ever seems to have a proper solution.

Yes, I am recoding in MKV. I have tried on iOS and Win. I have used different encoders. Nothing is working.

 

[Narcogen]

https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/please-post-a-log-with-your-issue-heres-how.23074/

 

[Crazylegsmurphy]

One of the logs (I think)

 

[Narcogen]

Suggest testing a long recording session with simple output mode, indistinguishable quality, large file size selected to see if the error occurs there.

This media source seems to be having a problem:

02:42:56.504: input: F:/Streaming/Videos/JW-8Bit-Games-StartHere.mp4
02:42:56.504: input_format: (null)
02:42:56.504: speed: 100
02:42:56.504: is_looping: yes
02:42:56.504: is_hw_decoding: yes
02:42:56.504: is_clear_on_media_end: no
02:42:56.504: restart_on_activate: yes
02:42:56.504: close_when_inactive: no
02:42:56.507: warning: st: 0 edit list: 1 Missing key frame while searching for timestamp: 0
02:42:56.507: warning: st: 0 edit list 1 Cannot find an index entry before timestamp: 0.

It's possible that if this error occurs while encoding, the encoder could error out and this might corrupt the video.

Are you using custom output for specific reasons?

 

[Crazylegsmurphy]

You'll have to forgive me, I don't understand these logs much. That input you're showing is not the input I'm using. The one I am using is simply a display capture and a audio capture.

The only reason I am using a custom output is because that is what I was told would yield the best quality.

I will set it to "Same as stream" and see what happens. I'll check back in two hours.

 

[Narcogen]

Suggest using simple output mode, indistinguishable quality, large file size.

The input in your log is loaded and errors with that file will affect OBS performance. Sources you go an entire recording session without using should be kept in a separate scene collection.

 

[Crazylegsmurphy]

Suggest using simple output mode, indistinguishable quality, large file size.

The input in your log is loaded and errors with that file will affect OBS performance. Sources you go an entire recording session without using should be kept in a separate scene collection.

Thanks. I'll give it a try.

As far as I know, this is how it is setup (as you can see from the photo). I am only using one scene for this recording. The rest are not used in this, nor have I ever had a problem before with them.

 

[Narcogen]

Other scenes in a collection are loaded even when inactive, since you might switch to them any second and OBS would have to display them. Basically a scene collection should contain only the scenes and sources you would use within a single streaming/recording session.

 

[Crazylegsmurphy]

Other scenes in a collection are loaded even when inactive, since you might switch to them any second and OBS would have to display them. Basically a scene collection should contain only the scenes and sources you would use within a single streaming/recording session.

Oh. Thanks for clarifying.

Perhaps I'm not understanding how OBS works but, do you have to delete the other scenes if they're not being used? That would be a frustratingly annoying thing to have to set up each time if you wanted to do a one-off recording (as I am doing).

 

[Narcogen]

Duplicate your scene collection from the Scene Collection menu.

You now have two copies of the same collection.

If, for instance, you had two main applications you stream for-- let's call them A and B-- you can create collections specifically for A and B.

So from one scene collection, delete all the scenes associated with application A, and call that scene collection "Collection B".

From the other, delete all scenes associated with application B, and call that scene collection, "Collection A".

You can always keep around a "contains all my scenes, master scene collection" and then duplicate it and delete the unneeded scenes to make a new scene collection for a new project, that way you never have to recreate scenes, and you also never have scenes loaded in the active collection that aren't associated with the project you're currently doing.

 

[Crazylegsmurphy]

Awww Frick! I've been using OBS for like a year and it never occurred to me that is what that menu was for. I feel like a super dummy dumb right now.

Thank you so much, this solved a totally unrelated issue I had. I hope it solves this one as well. Much appreciated.

 

[koala]

You don't have to delete scenes you don't currently use. That's not intended. If you have multiple sets of scenes, you could use scene collections. Only sources in the current scene collection are active.

You can also deactivate sources you don't intend to use in your current stream or recording. Click on the eye icon in the source list. The corresponding source vanishes from the preview. I'm not completely sure, but I assume a deactivated source consumes no or only minimal system resources.

 

[Narcogen]

I'm not completely sure, but I assume a deactivated source consumes no or only minimal system resources.

I'm not sure if this is necessarily so. I tested it by setting a video source to loop, hiding it, and then unhiding it... unless specifically set to unload when inactive, when you reveal the source, it will not restart, so it's looping even when not visible. Video and image sources have a checkbox for being unloaded when not active, but not everybody sets them that way. And the more complex a user's scenes are, the greater advantage from separating them into scene collections.

I only keep in a scene collection the scenes I could conceivably switch to within any given session. Usually that's one captured app at a time, along with the different intro/outro/break screens associated with that app.