OBS suddenly dropping massive amounts of frames

M

makki

New Member
Hiya,

I'm at my wits end with this issue I've suddenly started having with OBS. I've been streaming for 2 and a half years with the same hardware, settings, and internet with 0 issues. About a month ago, OBS started dropping massive amounts of frames anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour into my streams - the timing seems totally random and I can't pin down anything specific that would be setting it off. It will just fall into the red and sometimes, after a few minutes of bopping back and forth between stable and unstable, it will totally disconnect my stream. This only happens sometimes though. The most frustrating part of all this is that my husband is able to stream with no issues at all. Any time we've tested streaming from his profile instead of mine, he can stream for hours without any kind of frame drops or connection issues.

Here is the log from the last time this happened: https://obsproject.com/logs/6MMhVC2sqgBObWGn

Looking at it myself, I do see a TON of errors with a couple different Stream Elements sources, however again, I've been using those browser sources on my streams for a couple years now with no issues - could they really be what's causing the issue? I also noticed the log says "Number of dropped frames due to insufficient bandwidth/connection stalls: 7849 (7.3%)" This reads as a network/internet issue to me but I don't see how that could be possible since nothing has changed with my internet and I am using a wired connection. I've also been keeping an eye on Task Manager while I stream and nothing seems out of the ordinary there in terms of usage.

If it helps at all, my specs are:
Motherboard: ASRock AM4 AMD B550
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT
32 GB of RAM

If anyone has any ideas at all, please let me know. I feel like I've tried everything I could possibly think of, I even have a new modem coming tomorrow just in case that really is the issue somehow but not a single thing has made a difference so far and I really miss being able to stream. Thanks in advance.
 
qhobbes

qhobbes

Active Member
Your log does contain streaming sessions with dropped frames. This can only be caused by a failure in your internet connection or your networking hardware. It is not caused by OBS, it is strictly a network issue, but OBS can help. Follow the troubleshooting steps at: Dropped Frames and General Connection Issues. The quick fix is to enable Dynamic Bitrate. Settings > Advanced > Network. Do that before streaming. Use the TwitchTest to make sure you're connecting to the best server (preferably one with 100 quality). You can also try setting up a free restream.io account, linking your Twitch to restream and then OBS to restream. Make sure nothing else on your network is using bandwidth by turning off wifi and disconnecting any other ethernet cables.

Other stuff:
1. Browser hardware acceleration is currently disabled. Enabling acceleration is highly recommended due to the improvements to performance and significantly lower CPU usage for browser sources. This can be enabled in Settings -> Advanced.
2. Multiple Game Capture sources are usually not needed, and can sometimes interfere with each other (scenes Game Screen and NEW - Gaming Screen). You can use the same Game Capture for all your games. If you change games often, try out the hotkey mode, which lets you press a key to select your active game. If you play games in fullscreen, use 'Capture any fullscreen application' mode.
 
M

makki

New Member
qhobbes said:
Your log does contain streaming sessions with dropped frames. This can only be caused by a failure in your internet connection or your networking hardware. It is not caused by OBS, it is strictly a network issue, but OBS can help. Follow the troubleshooting steps at: Dropped Frames and General Connection Issues. The quick fix is to enable Dynamic Bitrate. Settings > Advanced > Network. Do that before streaming. Use the TwitchTest to make sure you're connecting to the best server (preferably one with 100 quality). You can also try setting up a free restream.io account, linking your Twitch to restream and then OBS to restream. Make sure nothing else on your network is using bandwidth by turning off wifi and disconnecting any other ethernet cables.

Other stuff:
1. Browser hardware acceleration is currently disabled. Enabling acceleration is highly recommended due to the improvements to performance and significantly lower CPU usage for browser sources. This can be enabled in Settings -> Advanced.
2. Multiple Game Capture sources are usually not needed, and can sometimes interfere with each other (scenes Game Screen and NEW - Gaming Screen). You can use the same Game Capture for all your games. If you change games often, try out the hotkey mode, which lets you press a key to select your active game. If you play games in fullscreen, use 'Capture any fullscreen application' mode.
Click to expand...

Thank you, I did take a look at the Log Analyzer myself. Genuine question though, are any of those things really enough to send my stream totally into the red and make it stay there? I'm sure I sound like a broken record at this point but my internet has not changed (in fact I'd been streaming on wifi for 2 years, only got a wired connection when this started happening but that didn't fix it), I've had Browser Hardware Acceleration disabled for as long as I can remember, and same with multiple game capture sources. I've also tried connecting to the best server for me and it still happens. I'm just at a loss at this point.
 
qhobbes

qhobbes

Active Member
1 and 2 are not going to help your network issue.

Just because your internet has not changed doesn't mean it's not the issue. Went back and forth in this thread https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/unstable-bitrate.176616/page-2#post-652002 with a similar issue and new ISP resolved their issue.

Turn off WiFi on your router and unplug any other Ethernet cords. If the issue is no longer happening, it's something on your network.

I would enable dynamic bitrate and leave it on. Your settings require a total 5660 Kbps of bandwidth. If you have 5659 Kbps or less of bandwidth available, then your going drop frames. Dynamic bitrate just lowers the bitrate when the required bandwidth is not available.
 
F

fatmatrow

Member
what are your internet speeds? Upload speed tends to be pretty anemic most of the time compared to download speeds. If your connection is solid and steady with upload speeds, then it is likely something between the modem and the pole, or even the pole and the node. I had an upload issue for a bit when a car hit a telephone pole so hard it knocked it over, and the electric company just slapped the cable company stuff back up without telling them, and the amp was throwing noise in the signal that messed with upload. Hell, it could be a problem with your computers network interface even. It is not OBS. I've been using it since 2013, I've run into a variety of odd issues, dropping frames is always a non OBS problem.
 
L

lufo

New Member
what if i añready turn off wifi and unpluged other Ethernet cords and the issue still happening?
 
M

makki

New Member
fatmatrow said:
what are your internet speeds? Upload speed tends to be pretty anemic most of the time compared to download speeds. If your connection is solid and steady with upload speeds, then it is likely something between the modem and the pole, or even the pole and the node. I had an upload issue for a bit when a car hit a telephone pole so hard it knocked it over, and the electric company just slapped the cable company stuff back up without telling them, and the amp was throwing noise in the signal that messed with upload. Hell, it could be a problem with your computers network interface even. It is not OBS. I've been using it since 2013, I've run into a variety of odd issues, dropping frames is always a non OBS problem.
Click to expand...

Down is usually in the mid-300s, up is about 22-23. According to our ISP we should be getting up to 100 Mbps of upload, but anyone I've talked to says that 22-23 should still be more than enough for streaming. My new modem got delayed in transit but should be here tomorrow, so I'll be be able to test it out then. It's a major upgrade from the one we have now so hopefully that makes some sort of difference.

One question though, if this is a network/internet problem, how is it possible that my husband been able to stream all this time with no issues at all? Is there something wrong with my profile or settings specifically that's causing the issue?
 
F

fatmatrow

Member
makki said:
Down is usually in the mid-300s, up is about 22-23. According to our ISP we should be getting up to 100 Mbps of upload, but anyone I've talked to says that 22-23 should still be more than enough for streaming. My new modem got delayed in transit but should be here tomorrow, so I'll be be able to test it out then. It's a major upgrade from the one we have now so hopefully that makes some sort of difference.

One question though, if this is a network/internet problem, how is it possible that my husband been able to stream all this time with no issues at all? Is there something wrong with my profile or settings specifically that's causing the issue?
Click to expand...
It could be the server he streams to, you can manually select the closest one to you, but it may not necessarily be the best. Are you streaming at the same time? Are you streaming at a time of day where local internet traffic would be high (like high activity hours for most people after work hours) There could be congestion.
 
F

fatmatrow

Member
lufo said:
what if i añready turn off wifi and unpluged other Ethernet cords and the issue still happening?
Click to expand...
It could be anything in the chain of your internet service, starting with your computers ethernet adapter on rare occasions. It goes Ethernet adapter on computer>cable>router>cable>modem>cable>Jack>cable in wall>outside box connection>cable to pole>pole connection>something in the miles of cable to your local node> etc etc.

Most people don't notice upload speed issues, since they're primarily downloading, wether its files, streaming movies, games etc. So if theres an issue in an area, nobody may report it.

Make sure you check everything up to the cable in the wall, then call your company until someone comes out. If that doesn't fix it, call again. Repeat until they do a truck roll and check the lines.

An upload issue could be caused by a lot of things, for example: a malfunctioning amp throwing noise in the line, a neighbor with an old tv thats throwing noise in the line etc etc
 
M

makki

New Member
fatmatrow said:
It could be the server he streams to, you can manually select the closest one to you, but it may not necessarily be the best. Are you streaming at the same time? Are you streaming at a time of day where local internet traffic would be high (like high activity hours for most people after work hours) There could be congestion.
Click to expand...

He streams at the same time frame I typically would (late evening) but we're not streaming at the same time, like not simultaneously. We've both had the server set to auto so I imagine it would just pick whatever it thought was best at the time, after all this started I set my server to the one closest to us though.

Our upload speeds consistently cap at 23 even with the new modem so we called our ISP. They said they could see on their end that others in our area had reported the same issue so they sent a team out to do some general equipment work, but we're still only getting that 23 upload afterward so now someone is coming out again today to look at our stuff specifically. Fingers crossed they figure something out because if not I've run out of things to try.
 
S

Sour_uwu

New Member
I am having this same issue over the past month and I have changed so much and decreased bandwidth so much to try and help but it hasn't made any difference. No idea what is going on but it's more than a few people making this issue known
 
FukounaShoujo

FukounaShoujo

New Member
Sour_uwu said:
I am having this same issue over the past month and I have changed so much and decreased bandwidth so much to try and help but it hasn't made any difference. No idea what is going on but it's more than a few people making this issue known
Click to expand...
I'm also facing this issue for about a month now.
 
qhobbes

qhobbes

Active Member
@FukounaShoujo do the following and post a new log if still having issues:
1. OBS is not running as Administrator. This can lead to OBS not being able to Game Capture certain games. If you are not running into issues, you can ignore this.
2. Multiple Game Capture sources are usually not needed, and can sometimes interfere with each other (scene '4:3 Gaming 2023'). You can use the same Game Capture for all your games. If you change games often, try out the hotkey mode, which lets you press a key to select your active game. If you play games in fullscreen, use 'Capture any fullscreen application' mode.
3. Your log contains a streaming session with dropped frames. This can only be caused by a failure in your internet connection or your networking hardware. It is not caused by OBS, but OBS can help. You clearly do not have Dynamic Bitrate enabled in that log (this may not be compatible with Stream Delay). Follow the troubleshooting steps at: Dropped Frames and General Connection Issues.
 
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