Question / Help YouTube Live Stream freezing due to audio rebuffering

[wgstarks]

I'm running a YouTube live stream on a Mac Mini 2012. It seems to work great for about 25 or 30 hours and then the video freezes, after which it is basically streaming a still image with no audio anymore.

There appears to still be an active stream. I can see the bitrate changing, but video is frozen and no audio. The log shows a change to audio buffering at the same time as the freeze. I don't know if that is the cause or just a coincidence.

The only way I have found so far to recover from this is to quit and re-launch OBS.

Log File

 

[wgstarks]

Same thing happened again early this morning, with the same entry in the log regarding audio buffering. I have to believe that this is the cause of the problem. No idea how to fix it though? The audio is from a mic attached to the camera and being received via the RTSP stream.

Most recent log

 

[wgstarks]

Once again a freeze when adjusting audio buffer size.

Log

 

[Narcogen]

Increasing audio buffering is usually indicative of CPU overload. Here it's not a cause, it's a symptom-- it's an indication that the CPU is being overloaded, perhaps by some other process, until it's no longer able to decode the media source. It's likely the interruption is temporary, but then the connection is not reestablished. In my experience OBS is really not well suited for use with RTSP streams and long term unattended use.

 

[wgstarks]

Thanks for the reply. This cpu is only being used for the rtsp stream. The load typically remains around 15% but I have seen it as high as 17%. It also doesn’t seem to be losing the stream. I can still view the stream it just has frozen video displayed and no audio.

I have been using OBS to process the stream for about a year now without any issues. Had to replace the Mac mini that I was using with a similar (stightly newer) model due to a failed motherboard. It was after the new install of the software that this issue started.

 

[Narcogen]

Just to clarify: audio buffer increases occur because the RTSP source is being interrupted. The cause of this can be CPU overload, but it could also be network. OBS is increasing the buffer because it sensed an interruption in the stream. It's a symptom, not a cause.

As for the other issue: all I can say is that it is very, very common to hear complaints that OBS, unlike other clients, loses connections to RTSP sources and then does not reestablish them, and I have experienced this problem myself, and not had problems with other software specifically intended to deal with RTSP streams. YMMV.

 

[wgstarks]

Would you care to recommend other Mac software that would work better for rtsp?

 

[Narcogen]

I use Security Spy, but that's for recording, not streaming. The problem as I see it is that most RTSP camera systems are intended to work as security cams. What's different about Security Spy or other security cam DVR programs compared to OBS with regard to RTSP I don't know. I do believe that OBS' ability to use RTSP as a source is just a byproduct of exposing that facility in the FFMpeg library, rather than something built expressly for that purpose.

You might have some luck if you use VLC as the client for the RTSP feed, and then capture that, either as a VLC source using the OBS plugin, or a window capture in OBS.

 

[wgstarks]

You might have some luck if you use VLC as the client for the RTSP feed,

Pretty sure I had to do this when I originally setup the stream on the old mini. It's been a while and I had completely forgotten. Now just need to figure out how to do it again. Thanks.