Recently my livestream has been crashing out of nowhere with OBS. I have been able to livestream with the same setup for almost three years without an

Atwashere

New Member
Unfortunately, I can't get any further and would appreciate your help. I have already tried everything possible (at least that I know) and don't understand what the cause is ... let alone where the problems are coming from :-(

Here's what's going on: I've been streaming for some time with my Intel MacbookPro and an external Magewell Capture Card (4x HDMI IN) plus Focusrite sound card, as well as Loopback for internal routing of my audio sources. I always stream a multistream simultaneously via Restream.io.

2.4 GHz 8-core Intel Core i9
Radeon Pro Vega 20 4 GB
Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB
32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
MacOS 14.6.1

The only thing that has changed in my setup is that I have updated to Sonoma as MacOS, as Magewell did not provide a driver for the Intel computers until quite late.

At first, however, everything ran fine as usual. Now I start streaming and after a certain, unpredictable amount of time, my internet connection drops out, my dropped frames due to frame delays go through the roof and my CPU shoots up. By the way, it can't be the internet connection. Both the stream computer and two other computers can connect to the network without any problems, while OBS is desperately trying to reconnect.
it can't be the server access to restream.io either, as i am running another computer with a 24/7 livestream without any problems. The problem also occurred when i was streaming directly to twitch.tv only.

I've already tried everything possible to get the CPU down, as I run the graphics via the CPU: e.g. video preview deactivated, ultrafast, emotewalls and alerts switched off; all other programs switched off ... unfortunately without success.

next I would stream at 720p instead of 1080p ... but that really bugs me, as it wasn't a problem before. Or is my computer “just” getting old and no longer performing as well? I'm lost. I really appreciate your ideas!!

PS: I attached the log files of my last two sessions. both gave me a bad time, after everything looked fine in the beginning :-((
 

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Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
What does System Monitor say about hardware resource utilization?
plenty of other threads on Sonoma and AMD GPU on intel systems with an iGPU, with a possible BIOS type/level workaround on the GPU (posted by Adobe)
- I'm suspecting this is your issue... you aren't doing GPU encode offload now, and your CPU utilization is too high/system overload, with all the natural results when that is the case (including potential thermal throttling)

Your comments about troubleshooting.. well, thinking it is okay is not the same as KNOWING the actual utilization and where bottlenecks may be. And some systems working and this one (OBS Studio) not, does NOT mean it isn't a Internet connection issue... not how networking works.

The joy of Apple's walled garden, and reducing support on older system... previously comments have been to go back to prior OS, or figure out the way to re-enable (at hardware/OS layer) GPU encode offload ... for you to research, I don't assert either of those as being correct, recommended, or otherwise... just trying to give you something to look further into
 

Atwashere

New Member
First of all, thank you very much for your time and effort helping me. to be honest, I don't know what I should to start with right now. I would describe myself as a normal application user who is not afraid to dive into settings (when guided). But I've got no IT-Background. when I described what I have already tried to get to grips with the problem, i didn't want to appear arrogant/all-knowing. I just wanted to show that I'm not lazily posting on the forum without trying myself out properly first.

Did i get it right that Sonoma might not work that well with intel macs? what shall i look for in the activity monitor? it's alway open when i'm streaming ... but i don't recognize to much info there that might help or indicate what causes troubles (what exactly should i look after?). I mainly use the activity monitor to watch out for cpu-intensive apps.

I've also tried to encode with my gpu in the early times but that didn't work out that well. I always thought that my GPU (Radeon Pro Vega 20 4 GB) is to weak for live streaming. Therefore I've used the x264 encoder and not the apple hardware encoder in the obs settings.

I googled what you described as "threads on Sonoma and AMD GPU on intel systems with an iGPU, with a possible BIOS type/level workaround on the GPU (posted by Adobe)" and found the info to "Disable Automatic graphic switching on the Energy Saver tab in the System Preferences. For more details, refer to Apple's documentation: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202043" (https://community.adobe.com/t5/ligh...os-sonoma-14/m-p/14470192?profile.language=de) ... so i did untick the option"automatic graphic switching". I'm busy this weekend but i will do a test stream on monday.

i also checked this: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/102312 ... to find out which graphics processor is in use on my macbook. The activity monitor (energy tab) indicates that OBS is using the higher-performance discrete GPU.
my plan is running a test stream on monday. First i check if unticking the "automatic graphic switching" will help. Next would be streaming in 720p. A downgrade to MacOS 13 would be the very last option.

 

Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
What I've read in these forums, indicates Apple changed some underlying Operating System operations that negatively impacts certain AMD GPU on Intel Mac systems. the extent and details of that? not something I've dug deep into

As for the AMD GPU and livestreaming.... typical IT answers... it depends... sorry, but technical (in the weeds) details matter
Assuming using H.264 encoding, then the question is the Intel QuickSync vs AMD encoder... including OS and driver support. AMD intentionally under-invested in their GPU H.264 encoding for soooo many years ... so I suspect Apple did something on their own (but I'm only guessing).
All of which means.... it depends on your exact Recording/Streaming settings as to whether the Radeon or Intel QuickSync would work well for you, in terms of CPU encode offload.
1. I'd research further on Sonoma on Intel Macs and video encoding [here and elsewhere]
You mentioned using x264 (CPU), then you may be dealing with Apple having focused on their new M series CPUs, and not tested/deprecated, or simply overlooked something with Intel CPU/AMD GPU in the new Operating System... which maybe will be fixed in an update.. or not [as issue impacting Adobe Premier Pro and presumably others... not like this issue is rare/unknown, but how motivated Apple will be to address it???]. Then again, with the new OS code, the issue may be simply having not optimized (sufficiently) that new code for Intel CPUs, so your base CPU utilization is higher, and whereas you were OK before, now your system gets overloaded when trying to do real-time video encoding​
2. Assuming you find reasonable to follow suggestions, I'd test using a hardware (AMD or intel iGPU) encode offload

Another option, if you are close on CPU load (to not going into overload) is to do some Operating System optimization to reduce background CPU load ... sorry, not may area with MacOS... someone else would need to advise, and doing this is as much art as science, as depends on your specific use case which things are ok to adjust, and which are best left alone/at defaults).
 
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