Repeating disconnection-reconnection issues over broadcasting

[umitsedgi]

Hello all,

I have had this constant OBS disconnection-reconnection issue in the last few months and can't understand what's causing it. During an average one-hour broadcasting, it gets disconnected 2-3 times and reconnects itself while the video is lost on broadcasting during that reconnection time.

What I've tried so far?
1) I had someone check the internet connection and later said the connection has less than 1% packet loss over an hour of tested connection and the internet connection doesn't seem to have a problem.
2) Put the log sheet to analyze and nothing significant comes out of it.

I've added the blueprint below and attached the current log sheet from obs

Let me know what could be done to fix this.

 

[Harold]

There is absolutely a connection issue between the streaming computer and youtube, and that is the only section of this process that could have the issue in this case.

Stream Connection Troubleshooting | OBS

OBS Knowledge Base. Dropped frames? Your stream is disconnecting? This guide will help you troubleshoot common connection issues.

obsproject.com

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Your Visio (/blueprint) appears to be either in error or missing an important detail relevant to your question - that being the OBS Studio computer to Internet connection specific details.
Just as one needs to do real-time hardware resource monitoring on the OBS Studio computer (ie RAM, CPU, GPU, network, etc), so too, during troubleshooting, you'll need monitoring info from all local devices in the network path to your ISP connection.

Let's assume the actual data path is
- [NDI?] PTZ Cameras on PoE network, with PoE switch connecter to router.
- OBS Studio PC connecter to same router
- Internet connected to that router
and is that a consumer level router? if yes, I wouldn't be surprised if the router (or a specific setting(s)) is the issue [but it could also easily be something else... but if I guessed right and PC is not resource constrained (or mis-behaving plugin) ... I'd start with network layout]

in our setup, the NDI feed to PoE switch which also has the dedicated streaming (OBS Studio) computer. So all that video traffic is ONLY impacting the switch. The switch is then connected to router, so the only traffic the router is dealing with is the outbound stream traffic. and not a single other thing. The rest of the location has its own network, and the stream network router (/firewall) then connects to the site router

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Hello all,

I have had this constant OBS disconnection-reconnection issue in the last few months and can't understand what's causing it.

What I've tried so far?
1) I had someone check the internet connection and later said the connection has less than 1% packet loss over an hour of tested connection and the internet connection doesn't seem to have a problem.
2) Put the log sheet to analyze and nothing significant comes out of it.
...snip...
Let me know what could be done to fix this.

The troubleshooting article above is a good starting point. However, what it doesn't cover is other possible network traffic (either from streaming PC itself, or ANY other device on LAN) contending for upload/upstream bandwidth. I cover a few high level considerations in this post https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/youtube-stream-skips.171587/post-632425
And don't dismiss the security software mentioned. When I fist started using OBS Studio, I had a workstation class computer, and had issues re-occurring that turned out to be the corporate-dictated security software running (but not well-managed) on that system.
But in your case (accounting for comments in your DM to me), assuming a non-dedicated Internet connection (or business class SLA/guaranteed bitrate provider), on a LAN with other guest/office/etc traffic, you run the risk of NOT ever being able to reliably solve this issue. Why? because (if I'm guessing correctly about other traffic) you are not working on a local network (LAN) with Quality-of-Service configured to prioritize your video streaming traffic over any other traffic. in which, contention (like car traffic) is essentially guaranteed at some point.
Packet loss is unlikely an issue... the issues (most likely) is overall bandwidth contention causing jitter & latency (more noticeable on a Internet 'phone call' without buffering... if contention is truly limited, most stream providers will tend to do their best to sustain audio (as our brains notice that quicker) over video, and there is natural buffering in receiving video stream, then re-encoding, and distributing which may partially hide smaller numbers of dropped frames). Also, depending on person who investigated, some network gear is going to default report Packet Loss on TCP packets, but ignore UDP packets (by design). So, it is conceivable in some environments for network switch/router/firewall to be dropping 100% of UDP packets and report 0% packet loss. Be careful in assuming when you asked, that the network person truly understood the traffic they were checking on

As for fixing - any recommendation would depend on the root-cause.
- *IF* these are fixed installations of OBS Studio, and you are in a position to request network changes, I'd start with establishing Quality of Service (QoS) to ensure adequate bandwidth prioritized for streaming traffic (assuming that is priority over other traffic... I could envision non-profit environments where streaming traffic is rightfully NOT a priority).
- And then get some bandwidth/traffic analysis during streaming timeframes. Is bandwidth contention an issue? if yes, 2 aspects - available bandwidth and what is using that bandwidth. Ex - Is ISP providing consistent upload bandwidth, or is this sometimes a cellular Internet connection, where available bandwidth varies by design? And then what other traffic are you contenting with?