Sudden Stream Quality Drop After 2+ Hours

[pewtercrunchy]

Hey everyone,

I’m hoping to get some feedback or suggestions on my OBS setup because I ran into a strange issue last night while streaming 007 First Light.

Everything was running perfectly for the first two hours and twenty minutes — smooth gameplay, stable bitrate, no dropped frames — and then out of nowhere, both YouTube and Twitch started throwing warnings that they weren’t receiving enough video data (interestingly, that it isn't even in any of my current OBS logs). My stream quality tanked, and viewers started seeing major lag.

I’m trying to figure out what caused this since I’m directly connected via Ethernet and consistently getting over 800 Mbps down / 400 Mbps up (I’ll attach screenshots of my speed test).

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My Setup

• Game Source: Game Capture (fullscreen)
• Streaming Platforms: YouTube + Twitch via obs‑multi‑rtmp, and TikTok + Instagram via Aitum Vertical Canvas
• Streaming Hardware:
  • Intel i7‑12700KF
  • NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti
  • 32 GB DDR5 RAM
  • Gigabyte M34WQ Ultrawide Monitor (3440×1440 @ 144 Hz)
• Connection: Wired Ethernet
• OBS Version: Latest stable build
• Encoder: NVIDIA NVENC H.264
• Bitrate: 13,500 Kbps (CBR) (Originally had it on 20,000)
• Resolution: 2560×1440 @ 60 FPS
• Plugins: obs‑multi‑rtmp, Aitum Vertical Canvas

I stream to all four platforms simultaneously from OBS — YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, and Instagram — and I’m wondering if my encoder or bitrate settings might be pushing the limits after a couple of hours.

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What Happened

After about 2 hours 20 minutes, YouTube started showing “poor stream quality” and “not receiving enough video.” A few minutes later, Twitch gave similar warnings. TikTok and Instagram seemed fine, which makes me think it’s either an encoder overload or network saturation issue specific to the horizontal outputs.

I’d love for someone to take a look at my settings and let me know if there’s anything that stands out or needs adjusting. I’ll attach screenshots of all my OBS settings (Output, Video, Advanced, and Aitum Vertical) so you can see exactly how I’m configured.

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Off‑Topic Question

Since I’m gaming on an ultrawide monitor (3440×1440), what’s the best way to stream to YouTube in 16:9 without cropping or stretching the image?

I want viewers to see a full‑screen experience while I still play in ultrawide. Is there a specific canvas/output combination or transform setting I should use to preserve the correct aspect ratio?

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Any insight or recommendations would be hugely appreciated — I’m trying to refine my setup so I can stream longer sessions without these random quality drops. Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to look through my screenshots and offer advice!

 

[PaiSand]

The log file from that stream session is needed. Please attach it (button bellow) in here.
If you have issues with a third party plugin you should contact its dev via the Discussion section on the particular plugins' page or wherever the dev have set for this

 

[pewtercrunchy]

The log file from that stream session is needed. Please attach it (button bellow) in here.
If you have issues with a third party plugin you should contact its dev via the Discussion section on the particular plugins' page or wherever the dev have set for this

I can certainly do that, no problem. However, the reason I didn’t, and it’s worth mentioning that when I uploaded the log file to https://obsproject.com/tools/analyzer. For some strange reason, it didn’t log that information or mention any issues with my stream in the analyzer.

It looks like the fourth log file from that night isn’t uploading because the file is too big. So here it is below

Log Analysis​

View entire log file

Analyzer | OBS

OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. Stream to Twitch, YouTube and many other providers or record your own videos with high quality H264 / AAC encoding.

obsproject.com

Feel free to review the attached file.

 

[PaiSand]

As you are using dynamic bitrate and network optimization one can deduce you have network traffic issues.
This errors confirms it:

23:32:55.629: WriteN, RTMP send error 10054 (4104 bytes)
23:32:55.629: WriteN, RTMP send error 10038 (236 bytes)
23:32:55.629: WriteN, RTMP send error 10038 (42 bytes)

This errors tells you there are network issues. It could be a problem within the network driver, the network adapter, the network cable, the router/modem or, most probably, the ISP specifically for the RTMP protocol which isn't tested by any online speed test.
It could also be an issue within the third party plugin. As the log file is cut short you can't see the end of this file with important info, like memory leaks.
Before blaming the ISP, rule out the other possible culprits.

 

[pewtercrunchy]

As you are using dynamic bitrate and network optimization one can deduce you have network traffic issues.
This errors confirms it:


This errors tells you there are network issues. It could be a problem within the network driver, the network adapter, the network cable, the router/modem or, most probably, the ISP specifically for the RTMP protocol which isn't tested by any online speed test.
It could also be an issue within the third party plugin. As the log file is cut short you can't see the end of this file with important info, like memory leaks.
Before blaming the ISP, rule out the other possible culprits.

Thanks for the detailed breakdown, that helps a lot. I’ll start by trying to update my network adapter drivers if its needed and checking my router firmware.

If it’s RTMP‑specific, I might try routing through a restream service to isolate the problem. I’ll share updated logs after my next test.
I’ve turned off “dynamically change bit rate to manage congestion (beta)” and switched off “network optimizations.” Besides the network-related problems and the advanced settings, do you think my settings look good from these screenshots?

 

[PaiSand]

You may want to set IPv4 only in the advanced OBS settings