Question / Help OBS keeps stopping the stream randomly - NOT on my end!

J

JamZam

New Member
Hey guys.

For the past few days I've been trying to get back into streaming and I find it extremely annoying, you see my stream keeps randomly stopping after anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour or two into the session. At first I had no idea, I just found it weird that I didn't have any viewers. On the viewers end, the stream is just entirely frozen on a still image and no matter what you do (refresh the page etc.) the still image is still there, entirely frozen. Audio just stops for them.

Now, keep in mind, this isn't (or shouldn't be) on my end. First of, here's my specs:

CPU: Intel i7 4790k OC'd to 4.2ghz (stable, extremely stable).
GPU: Nvidia MSI GTX 970
RAM: 24gb @ 1866hz
Motherboard: MSI Z97 Gaming 3
HDD's: 2tb @7200rpm + 6tb @5400rpm
SSD: Samsung Evo 250gb

I'm also running with a connection speed of 300mbit/s download and 100mbit/s upload, streaming at 3500 bitrate (moreso just to avoid overloading twitch for the viewers).

OBS are setup to stream at 60fps 720p, more info is included in the log file:

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/c7ae8a4ff87650ed757f

The only plugin I run outside of what comes with OBS is the CLR Browser plugin, to be able to use TwitchAlerts.

Now, I was going to show an example of this happening but after some digging around in my Twitch VODs, apparently the whole stream shows up in the replay... but people can't actually watch it live. It literally catches people telling me the stream crashed in the stream replays. I'm gonna be experimenting over the next couple of days to see if it's the twitch stockholm server messing up.

And finally, for reference (I don't know how long this link will be active as Twitch deletes the replays after a while), here's tonights stream. You can clearly see that my computer is fine, I run at a stable 200+ fps in-game and OBS is dropping 0 frames on the side.

http://www.twitch.tv/mcjamzam/b/660382194

I've been digging around on google and in the forums without finding a solution to this, so any help is greatly appreciated as I obviously can't have the stream crash if I'm putting down alot of time into making it as good as possible!

/Jonas
 
I vaguely remember something like this happening in the past for someone else with a Killer NIC; if memory serves, he fixed it by swapping OBS over to specifically bind to his motherboard's built-in NIC, and ran a second network cable.

This may also be due to Twitch-side issues (as they're beta'ing a reduced-delay method, and may have tweaked stuff around on the back end), but hooking up a second cable and pointing OBS to not use the Killer NIC should only take a minute or two to test, so it's what I'd try first. Also less likely to be a Twitch-side problem, sitting within the upper server limit, and that refreshing the page doesn't un-freeze it suggests that it's on your end. Are you recording locally? Does the stream freeze in the recording?


Just on a side-note, non-partnered casters are advised to keep at or below 2000kbps, which is enough for a very watchable 720p@30fps stream. 3500 is the maximum the ingests are rated to handle without server-side issues, but that's mostly an advisory for Partnered casters... that exceeding 3500 is "here there be dragons" territory. 720@60 can be run on 2500kbps (but it will look fairly poor) but you'll also start to run into increasing numbers of buffering viewers past 2000, and will get significantly more buffering problems for viewers above 3K. Can also dial back to 480p or 540p@60 to mostly-fit within a 2K limit.
 
Thanks for the tips, I'll try that cable thing later tonight (once I have time to figure out exactly what you mean :p) also I'll make sure to lower the fps to 30 and the bitrate to 2000. I'm not recording locally but again, the replays on twitch doesn't freeze. It's only the live feed freezing.
 
Strange; never mind on the network cable then if it shows up without a freeze in the VOD. Didn't see that bit earlier. Do you have any viewers that use VLC+Livestreamer to watch? Narrowing it down to whether it's the Twitch player, or the video server causing the freeze is the next step. Know I have a number of viewers who do get a growing-delay-into-freeze issue, but refreshing the page is enough to fix it for them, and it doesn't happen for anyone on VLC. Likewise, are you using the low-delay beta? May try switching it off... new features seem to have a good tendency to break.
 
That's a good point, I'll have a friend try watching with VLC tonight and see if that works. I don't use the low-delay beta, no, so that's not the issue. Allthough I don't really have any experience in troubleshooting this type of problem, so if I find that it works with VLC,,, I have no idea how to improve it in twitch. At that point I'd have to contact Twitch support I guess.

Thanks for all your tips, much apreciated!
 
Pretty much! If it's on Twitch's end, there isn't much to do but email them and provide the information they want. Already am pretty sure they'll want to have people who get the freezing issue to right-click on the player, look at the Statistics window, and send in a screenshot of the results.

Bear in mind that the changes Twitch made on their end to allow the use of the low-delay system might have also interfered with this, even if you aren't using it. Especially with it just starting in the last few days, which might coincide with the back-end changes made (and possibly the video player update, if they did one... not sure on that regard).

Cheers, and here's hoping it gets worked out soon!
 
Yeah I lowered my bitrate to 2000 and the fps to 30 (really sucks to do that), and also I changed the server I'm using from the Stockholm server (closest geographically) to the London server. Stream seems to work just fine now, so thanks again for all the help in this!
 
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