Updated 10 January 2021: It is now safe to upgrade to Big Sur, as long as you upgrade OBS to 26.1.2 first, or switch to an empty scene collection before the upgrade.
Prior to version 26.1.2, OBS Studio had an issue on macOS Big Sur where using a browser source caused OBS to crash. However, this issue did not appear to affect everybody on Big Sur, as some people were able to use browser sources with OBS on Big Sur just fine.
You can see the history of the issue here.
If OBS is not launching at all for you on Big Sur, it's likely because you already have a Browser Source in one of your scenes somewhere, and did not upgrade to 26.1.2 first. The easiest way to work around this issue is to delete your scene file. This will remove your scene setup, but will at least let you launch OBS, as long as you don't add any more browser sources.
To delete your scenes files, do the following:
1. Open a Finder window.
2. From the "Go" menu, click "Go to folder...".
3. Enter the following: ~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio/basic/scenes/
4. Click the "Go" button.
5. In the window that opens, you should see a number of files that end in .json. Delete the files that correspond to your scene collections. This will delete your scenes. If you haven't given your scene collection a name, it will be called Untitled.json .
6. You should now be able to open OBS again with a blank scene collection.
Prior to version 26.1.2, OBS Studio had an issue on macOS Big Sur where using a browser source caused OBS to crash. However, this issue did not appear to affect everybody on Big Sur, as some people were able to use browser sources with OBS on Big Sur just fine.
You can see the history of the issue here.
If OBS is not launching at all for you on Big Sur, it's likely because you already have a Browser Source in one of your scenes somewhere, and did not upgrade to 26.1.2 first. The easiest way to work around this issue is to delete your scene file. This will remove your scene setup, but will at least let you launch OBS, as long as you don't add any more browser sources.
To delete your scenes files, do the following:
1. Open a Finder window.
2. From the "Go" menu, click "Go to folder...".
3. Enter the following: ~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio/basic/scenes/
4. Click the "Go" button.
5. In the window that opens, you should see a number of files that end in .json. Delete the files that correspond to your scene collections. This will delete your scenes. If you haven't given your scene collection a name, it will be called Untitled.json .
6. You should now be able to open OBS again with a blank scene collection.
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