OBS keep corrupting my recordings - I need help!

[SwedishTrollo]

I'm honestly about to give up on OBS. No matter what I try, it just keeps corrupting my recordings.


When I say "corrupting," I mean that large portions of the recording go missing, and the audio turns into a super-sonic flickering mess when the corruption starts. At first, I thought it was due to low FPS in-game, which seems to happen in games like Rising Storm 2: Vietnam, known for having performance issues. After playing for some time, the FPS would eventually cap at 50 or lower, and sure enough, OBS would corrupt the footage almost the entire time.


Lowering the game settings and restarting the game didn't help—it would still stay locked at low FPS. Surprisingly, after another restart, the FPS went back up to 100+, and I monitored my hardware while recording using CrystalDiskInfo, HWInfo, Task Manager, and OBS Stats. None of them showed any hardware overload or overheating. The game was running fine, but OBS started acting sluggish when I tried to record again, freezing on Start Recording, so I restarted it.


While recording, there were only two skipped frames due to render lag, which shouldn't be enough to cause a full-blown corruption. Later, I got two more skipped frames along with encoder lag, and I suspect that's when the corruption happened—even though my in-game FPS was still fine and my hardware wasn’t overloaded.


I’ve lost so much good footage because of this, and it’s incredibly frustrating. Another common issue is that OBS sometimes gets stuck on "Stopping Recording" and "Stopping Replay Buffer." That’s usually a clear sign that the recording got corrupted. If I stop the recording after exiting the game, there's a risk that the bottom bar in video playback (scrubbing) becomes unmovable.


I've tried so many fixes, including:
Setting OBS to High Priority
Enabling V-Sync in all games
Disabling Game Bar, DVR, HAGS, Game Mode, and Xbox services
Reducing bitrate and quality significantly
Ensuring the SSD isn’t full (2TB with plenty of free space, 100% health)
Tried using Display Capture instead of Game Capture


No matter what I do, the problem persists. In the attached log file, you can see multiple plugin errors, and further down, there are tons of "Invalid video parameters specified" errors, which I assume are where the corruption happens. I can't figure out what they mean.


I do use some plugins, specifically Source Record, which lets me capture raw gameplay separately from my streaming overlays. I have a few scenes with overlays and backgrounds for streaming, and if it weren’t for Source Record, they would be included in my recordings.

My PC Specs:​

️ RTX 4070 GPU
️ Ryzen 7 5800X CPU
️ 32GB RAM
️ 2TB Kingston NVMe SSD


None of my hardware is overheating or reaching max usage. Not even my RAM is struggling. So there's plenty of power left to be used.


I uploaded my log file to the OBS Log Analyzer, and the only critical issue it flagged was "Two instances of OBS detected"—which happens because I have the Stats window open. Other than that? Nothing. The analyzer isn’t picking up any actual problems.


If anyone with more experience can take a look at the log file and tell me what the hell is wrong, I would greatly appreciate it. This issue has drained my energy completely.

 

[koala]

The logs look mainly ok. According to these, everything is ok. Since it is not, and there is no hint about an issue in the log, you need a structured approach to rule out possible issues.

You added several plugins, so you can disable the plugins and see if the issue still happens. Temporarily remove the source-record plugin, because it might interfere with existing encoder use. And don't use the replay buffer. It's also using the encoder, and you seem to have data corruption in the encoded video. Finally, temporarily remove the streamelements plugin. In the past it was the reason for crashes and unexpected behavior. It replaced vital OBS files (don't know if it's still the case), but after removal, reinstalling OBS would be a good idea (your config will stay untouched during reinstall).

See what happens without streamelements plugin, replay buffer use and source-record plugin. If the issue is gone, start again using the replay buffer, and if that still works, add source-record again. And if it still all works ok, try re-adding the streamelements plugin if you really need that. See how OBS behavior changes after adding each functionality separately.

 

[SwedishTrollo]

The logs look mainly ok. According to these, everything is ok. Since it is not, and there is no hint about an issue in the log, you need a structured approach to rule out possible issues.

You added several plugins, so you can disable the plugins and see if the issue still happens. Temporarily remove the source-record plugin, because it might interfere with existing encoder use. And don't use the replay buffer. It's also using the encoder, and you seem to have data corruption in the encoded video. Finally, temporarily remove the streamelements plugin. In the past it was the reason for crashes and unexpected behavior. It replaced vital OBS files (don't know if it's still the case), but after removal, reinstalling OBS would be a good idea (your config will stay untouched during reinstall).

See what happens without streamelements plugin, replay buffer use and source-record plugin. If the issue is gone, start again using the replay buffer, and if that still works, add source-record again. And if it still all works ok, try re-adding the streamelements plugin if you really need that. See how OBS behavior changes after adding each functionality separately.

I appreciate your reply, mate. My friend recommended me to use av1 instead of h.264 and I also tried keeping the replay buffer turned off, and I haven't had any corrupted recordings ever since. I don't even get fps drops in-game anymore, so it really has done wonders.