Stream went live despite test mode

[Krystal_Skull]

The last few days I've been running bandwidth tests trying to figure out why with the same settings I've been using for 2 years, suddenly the stream is lagging.

Anyway, I started another test this morning and OBS showed me the warning message that my stream will not be not live because it is in test mode.
However, after an hour, I found that my stream is live. How could this be? The test mode was enabled. I tried it again. Stream went live again. Only after restarting OBS did it work reliably again. My stream was online for an hour without me knowing about it! I am horrified.

Is this a bug?

 

[Tomasz Góral]

Since when does OBS have a test mode?

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Is this a bug?

Just curious - are you using Streamlabs OBS? *IF* yes,

​

Streamlabs OBS [SLOBS] is a derivative version of OBS Studio, with the front-end hacksawed off and a webpage slapped over the top by the Streamlabs folks.​

​

You should reach out to Streamlabs <https://support.streamlabs.com/hc/en-us> for support with their forked version.

If not that, I'm with Tomasz as in last 13 months I've never come across a Test mode in OBS (in certain live stream platforms - yes; OBS - no)

 

[FerretBomb]

I'd assume they mean this:

It relies on appending information to the end of your stream key to indicate to Twitch that you are running a test. It's up to Twitch to prevent the stream from going live.

In any case, it is a MUCH better idea to use R1ch's Twitch Test tool instead, which will give you pertinent information on both bandwidth to server, as well as packet loss and throughput stability as a unified 'quality' value. 100 is best, anything below 90 will likely drop frames.

You can also use software like PingPlotter (a free version is available from their website) and ping your ingest server while streaming to gather data on which node in your route is likely causing the problem; you'd want to look for the first hop with packet loss, or a node with widely-varying ping response bar (~300ms swing or greater). The last hop will always be 100% packet loss as Twitch has disabled ICMP responses from their servers.

But the joy of the internet is that 95% of your connection is entirely out of your control. It can go from good to bad to good again with zero changes made on your end.