Question / Help Random crackling audio started midstream

[psnorton23]

I've had a few cases of my mic not responding when I first start OBS.
I can see the mic is unresponsive in the audio mixer so I momentarily unplug the mic.
This has always solved the unresponsive mic.

Sometimes the audio mixer looks good, but there is crackling present.
Normally I am able to detect this before I stream by doing a quick test recording.
When crackling is present, I restart OBS.
This has always resolved the issue in the past and then I am able to start a stream without any issues.

Last night I had both issues and applied my "fixes".
I then had a successful test recording ... but the audio crackling started during my stream!
I was a couple minutes in and everything went form fine to crackle.

I did what I usually do and unplugged the mic and restarted OBS and the subsequent stream (an hour or so) was fine.


I'd like to know what, if anything, I can do to avoid this problem in the future but not sure where to start.

Thanks

 

[psnorton23]

I found this in the logs:

20:23:31.505: adding 278 milliseconds of audio buffering, total audio buffering is now 905 milliseconds (source: Cam Link Selfie)
20:23:31.505:
20:23:37.843: Max audio buffering reached!
20:23:37.844: adding 139 milliseconds of audio buffering, total audio buffering is now 1044 milliseconds (source: Cam Link Workbench)

I use 2x cam links but am not using the audio from them.
Could they be impacting my mic anyway?

If so, is there some way to disable the audio for those in OBS to help?

If not in OBS, what about disabling these in the device manager like this: