Bug Report Save File Kills Stream After Awhile

[Raini]

I stream on Twitch.tv at 1080p and save my broadcast locally to an external HDD for making YouTube highlights.

After I stream for over an hour, OBS will covertly stop broadcasting and begin to generate a .MP4 of my broadcast. It always claims to be broadcasting during this activity, but my Viewers insist that I go Offline. Once the .MP4 has been generated, OBS immediately attempts to reconnect to Twitch.tv as well. This whole routine tends to happen at the WORST POSSIBLE TIMES, such as during cutscenes in games.

If this issue could be fixed (and layered window support added), I would literally have no reason to ever use XSplit again.

 

[R1CH]

I guess you are getting disconnected from Twitch for some reason (bad internet / dropped frames / etc), and in doing so OBS is pausing to do the mp4 finalization before reconnecting. Seems like a design flaw, but you should try to figure out why you're getting disconnected in the first place. Do you have a lot of frame drops?

 

[Lain]

yea, sorry about that, that is indeed a design flaw -- and one I'm not entirely sure how to approach now that I think about it

 

[Raini]

So, it is on my end that the disconnection occurs? The disconnection is not being initiated by OBS?

My main concern was that OBS was scheduling the disconnect in order to generate .MP4s that didn't exceed a certain time or file size. If the disconnection is an issue on my end, then I understand that it is something I would have to work towards addressing on my own.

It would be nice however if, upon disconnect, OBS immediately attempted to reconnect -- even if it was busy generating the .MP4 file. I do not know if this is technologically possible, but it would cut down on the reconnect time and loss of viewers.

Another confusing thing about this issue is that OBS does not state that it has disconnected until after the .MP4 has been generated. It still claims to be streaming until it initiates the reconnect. Now that I know that it is in fact disconnected during the generation of the .MP4, this doesn't really matter, but I thought that it might be worth mentioning.

I appreciate all of the work that you put into this program. It is remarkably superior to XSplit in every other way. This is something that I am sure you will be able to figure out, or that I will be able to work through and deal with if it is merely a symptom of a larger Internet/dropped frame issue on my end.

 

[Lain]

Ah, nope, the app doesn't disconnect unless you tell it to, or unless the server is the one disconnecting you. It's a bit difficult to get it to immidiately reconnect -- mp4 tends to take a bit of time to compile after the stream is complete. (May be usedful to note that FLV doesn't have that same issue, it doesn't have to take any time compiling the file after completion)

Yea, I'll try to do something about this. Thank you for pointing it out.

 

[Raini]

Just an update on this, but I strongly feel that OBS is in some way contributing to the stream disconnection by generating these video files. Twitch.tv automatically records and separates my videos between broadcasts. The timestamps for all of my OBS broadcasts are around one hour and twenty minutes. The timestamps for all of my broadcasts prior to using OBS were around two to five hours, which means I was more likely to stream for several hours consistently without being disconnected. I'm not meaning to nag you on this and I understand that you have a lot of other priorities right now with regard to bug fixing this software; I just thought I'd give a heads up on the way it is functioning right now.

 

[Lain]

No no, it's okay.

Generating a video file is not the cause of you getting disconnected, it is the result of you getting disconnected. The end of the video file gets generated only after you disconnect, not before. The server itself is deciding to disconnect you -- my app does not initiate a disconnect unless you yourself close the stream, or unless it crashes.

Though I understand the annoyance of getting disconnected, before you necessarily place blame upon the application, I would first like to point out that I do have many streamers who go on 6-7+ streaming streaks with no disconnection issues. Though I am not saying it is impossible, I would merely like to point out that fact first and foremost.

Now, settings in the application however could be more likely to cause disconnections. For example, the server may disconnect you if you have too many dropped frames, which means you probably would need to adjust the bitrates in that circumstance. Or maybe you're trying to capture at 60fps, but you get many lagged frames. The server may detect that, and decide to disconnect you. For the least chance of disconnection, ensure that your capture frame rate is consistent, and that you aren't dropping frames very often. Also, make sure to select a server that's closest to you if possible. Those suggestions are unfortunately the best advice I can give at the moment as to minimizing disconnection (that I know of, if anyone can add anything feel free).

 

[Raini]

Jim, I just wanted to say that your your diligence, patience, and grace with responding to every individual concern vocalized on these forums is phenomenal. I know that it must get daunting to receive the same questions/accusations about things like framerate or disconnect when the majority of the time these issue are outside your hands and unrelated to the software entirely.

I have been looking into this issue and I have discovered that many other Broadcasters on Twitch.tv have been complaining about this exact same problem, whether or not they use OBS. I'm starting to think that this could be indicative of a larger ISP/routing issue between non-Tier 1 ISPs, like Comcast, and Twitch.tv. I tracerouted my connection to Twitch.tv recently to see what my ISP's pathing was like to their video servers and it took about 10 hops before ending with gblx.net (Global Crossing/Level 3, which is Tier 1). There are less hops when I tracert YouTube.com (and even less when I tracert a non-video streaming site, such as Google.com). Some of these hops are incredibly redundant, like 3 hits within the same city for my ISP. I'm using Comcast (which isn't Tier 1) and Level 3 has been accusing them recently of prioritizing traffic by throttling video streaming traffic specifically: http://gigaom.com/cloud/level-3-concurs ... g-traffic/

I don't know if this is the actual source of my issue, but I'm sure that it isn't helping the problem.