Tips for making OBS reliable/consistent enough to use?

[vinnyvincentinversion]

I've been trying to stream for years but I cannot get OBS to work reliably enough to do so. Either the cameras randomly display extremely dark for some reason, often the cameras are all choppy (like today), and now today it has also completely stopped receiving input from my audio interface. Reboots and setting everything up again from scratch isn't helping, I am now completely dead in the water with nowhere to turn but here.

I have bought multiple cameras and got a whole new computer (not to mention tripods, lighting, etc.) but nothing seems to make OBS work reliably enough to use. All the peripherals work just fine outside of OBS, OBS is the core issue. Its not that I don't understand the app, its pretty straight forward and I'm not trying to do anything complex, no scene switching or anything, the app just seems broken. The few streams I have been able to pull off all had multiple false starts trying to get everything working at the same time. How are you all making it work? I don't get it.

Are there other software options similar to OBS that work better?

I am using the latest version of OBS with MacOS Monterrey, on a 2018 Mac Mini i5 with 32GB RAM.

Thanks for any info, I have spent countelss hours on this over the course of 3 years and so far it has been for nothing.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

That Mac is a bit old, but okay *IF* you keep your expectations reasonable for a _possibly_ under-powered system, and the mini is subject to thermal throttling. a 2018 i5 should be plenty for 1080p30 with reasonable settings.
- so learn how to do real-time hardware resource utilization monitoring, what the metrics mean, etc
- follow directions.. seriously... in this forum is a pinned post that says when asking for help, to post your OBS log... and you didn't
- realize that flexible real-time video encoding is REALLY demanding, especially when not using proprietary / license required, patented techniques. So your phone can do real-time video encoding.... 1 way, etc... When asking a PC to do the same, in a flexible way, with free open-source software, some options are off the table (so to speak)
- beware YouTube videos on setup that don't mention the caveats and requirements (meaning they are suggesting settings that will simply never work you)
- you may well need to learn how to optimize your Operating System to avoid resource contention (CPU, GPU, Disk and Network I/O). This is an art.. there is no fixed answer... as it depends on your unique circumstances as to what is possible vs recommended, probably best to avoid, etc.

So, first is to understand what role OBS plays, and what it doesn't. I personally prefer to be in full control of stream settings, and not relying on any automation. And for security reason, I do NOT use a persistent stream key. Better yet, get recording to work first (as that avoid the whole complexity of network behavior that most people fail to understand adequately for streaming (low jitter upload traffic vs consumer optimized Internet circuits optimized for download). Can you record without a problem? if you can't, then typical causes are - OBS Studio settings (hence log request), bad/incompatible settings for plugins, Operating System issues, and inadequate hardware resources for the requested workload.

All of the above applies to OBS Studio or any other software. Benefit of alternative pay software is ideally a support number to call. But usually they won't help if you've messed up your own Operating System, or have background tasks taking up resource and creating a bottleneck.

As for countless hours.. I started with OBS Studio 3 years ago, starting with a strong IT technical background, and I spent 80-120 hours getting good at basic automation, scenes, multiple sources, etc. What may help, is the StreamGeeks (PTZOpticw) free eBook on setting up OBS Studio? Or the Getting started section under Help at this site.