Bug Report OBS sometimes records silent audio

[phaolo]

Hi, OBS has some annoying bug with audio.
It's the second time that it happened to me, sadly.

Basically it records video+sound normally for a while and then randomly switches to video+silent audio.

Please, fix this because it already ruined a lot of footage :(

I've attached the log:
- the first video with silent audio was at 23:06:54.915, then the rest was ruined as well.
- notice the memory leak at the end.
- why does OBS always report Failed to set x264 profile 'high' ?

P.s: I've shortened the log at the start, but edited the original by mistake.. oops.

 

[phaolo]

Hello?
Did someone check this?
Some feedback please :P

 

[Narcogen]

Not what you're looking for, but the "failed to set profile high" seems to be normal. FFMpeg seems to no longer include preset files for high, only for main and baseline.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions...rofile-to-high-when-using-ffmpeg-with-libx264

As for the audio... are you using your Nvidia's HDMI output as your main? Is it set to stereo output?

I'm wondering if perhaps installing Voicemeeter Banana and having it set up a virtual audio device to capture in OBS, and then send audio somewhere for monitoring might help isolate where the problem is. There does not appear to be any errors in the log regarding losing connection to an audio device, and I assume you're just trying to capture your default output, and monitoring is still functioning because while recording you can still hear it, even if OBS isn't recording it.

 

[phaolo]

FFMpeg seems to no longer include preset files for high, only for main and baseline.

Ah, but that thread is 6 years old.. OBS devs should remove such setting if it isn't valid anymore.

As for the audio... are you using your Nvidia's HDMI output as your main? Is it set to stereo output?

Yes.
OBS records stereo, but my device can output 6 channels for the surround.
Btw, the game I was recording is just stereo.

There does not appear to be any errors in the log regarding losing connection to an audio device, and I assume you're just trying to capture your default output, and monitoring is still functioning because while recording you can still hear it, even if OBS isn't recording it.

Yes and I can still hear the sound from the speakers and see the bar in OBS moving as usual.
What about the memory leak at the end?

I'm wondering if perhaps installing Voicemeeter Banana and having it set up a virtual audio device to capture in OBS, and then send audio somewhere for monitoring might help isolate where the problem is.

Mmm.. IMO that would only overcomplicate things.
The current setup is simple overall.

P.s: btw I wanted to try Voicemeeter at some point to isolate game audio and then listen to music or voicecall without ruining the recording. Some people say that it's a bit inconsistent though..
Also, does it require an activation key tied to my pc?

 

[RytoEX]

- the first video with silent audio was at 23:06:54.915, then the rest was ruined as well.
- notice the memory leak at the end.
- why does OBS always report Failed to set x264 profile 'high' ?

I don't see anything in the log that would indicate that the audio would go silent mid-way through this session. I notice that you are starting and stopping recordings using hotkeys. Are you sure that you didn't toggle or change something like bumping a mute hotkey? Didn't accidentally switch it to monitor only?

The memory leak at the end is not related.

OBS devs should remove such setting if it isn't valid anymore.

The x264 profile issue is also probably unrelated, and that does not occur on my system (Windows 10). I don't have a Windows 7 system to test this on.

P.s: btw I wanted to try Voicemeeter at some point to isolate game audio and then listen to music or voicecall without ruining the recording. Some people say that it's a bit inconsistent though..
Also, does it require an activation key tied to my pc?

I've never known Voicemeeter to be inconsistent. It just requires some setup. It does not require an activation key. It is donationware (pay what you want).

 

[phaolo]

I notice that you are starting and stopping recordings using hotkeys. Are you sure that you didn't toggle or change something like bumping a mute hotkey? Didn't accidentally switch it to monitor only?

I only enabled 2 hotkeys in OBS (F7,F8) to start\stop the recording.
The mute audio on the keyboard would have silenced also the actual game I was playing, so no.

Btw I noticed that a few times OBS started the recording on its own, not sure how O_o

The x264 profile issue is also probably unrelated, and that does not occur on my system (Windows 10).

Ok, but so it's false that such profile was removed? Should I select "main" or leave "high"?

 

[RytoEX]

I only enabled 2 hotkeys in OBS (F7,F8) to start\stop the recording.
The mute audio on the keyboard would have silenced also the actual game I was playing, so no.

Btw I noticed that a few times OBS started the recording on its own, not sure how O_o

Ok, but so it's false that such profile was removed? Should I select "main" or leave "high"?

OBS cannot start recordings on its own without some user interaction or without a setting being enabled to allow automatic recording. Every instance of a recording starting in your previous log was started with a hotkey (the log shows this).

No, FFmpeg did not remove that profile, as far as I know. I don't know exactly why you would see that error in the log. In the meantime, you can switch to using the "main" profile, or you can try re-running the OBS Studio installer.

 

[phaolo]

OBS cannot start recordings on its own without some user interaction or without a setting being enabled to allow automatic recording. Every instance of a recording starting in your previous log was started with a hotkey (the log shows this).

Ah no sorry, I wasn't talking about this log, but about other sessions. A few times OBS even began recording right after start.
Anyway, if that happens again, I'll check immediately the log.

 

[RytoEX]

There are settings that can cause that, but they are not enabled by default. You would have had to have enabled them beforehand. You can check the following OBS settings:

General > Output > Automatically record when streaming
General > Output > Keep recording when stream stops

Other than that, you can have OBS automatically start a recording when OBS opens with a commandline argument/switch (--startrecording), but it would have to be specified in your OBS shortcuts (which again, is not put there by default).

 

[phaolo]

There are settings that can cause that, but they are not enabled by default. You would have had to have enabled them beforehand.

Mm.. I don't even have those settings.. O_o
Anyway, this is a bit OT. I'll create a new thread if that strange recording happens again.

 

[phaolo]

Guys, it happened again.

Since the first error, I keep restarting OBS every N minutes, hoping to avoid the silent audio again.
Well.. it didn't work (but at least now the damage is limited).
This bug seems to occur randomly..

I'll attach 2 logs:
- the first from a 7 mins session (all silent).
- the second after restarting OBS, having noticed the silent audio (test not silent anymore).

If the logs don't show anything relevant, it could mean that OBS doesn't check or report something..

 

[phaolo]

Hey, in the meantime I checked the logs myself.

The correct log reports:

output 1: pos={0, 0}, size={1920, 1080}, attached=true
output 2: pos={-1680, -1050}, size={1680, 1050}, attached=true
output 3: pos={-3600, -2130}, size={1920, 1080}, attached=true

Output1 is my main monitor, output2 is my secondary one, output3 is my Yamaha RX-V483 AVR connected via HDMI (which is on and plays the pc audio).

The incorrect log doesn't list output3 and so OBS is trying to record the sound through my headphones!? (connected, but not used at that moment)

WASAPI: Device 'Headphones (Realtek High Definition Audio)' initialized

So that could be the reason!
Why does OBS behave like this?
Can it be avoided? :\

P.s: btw OBS really needs some (configurable) alerts to warn users about problems. E.g: video black or audio muted -> popup with sound

 

[phaolo]

I had an idea for a possible cause, so I tried a test.
I'm not 100% sure if this was the reason before, but I managed to reproduce the issue!

Basically I started OBS, then turned on the AVR, then launched the game to record.
It seems that OBS doesn't refresh its output list, unless I restart it!
So it didn't consider the AVR and just used the headphones (without any sound).

This is quite annoying, can you please detect new devices also after the program start?

 

[phaolo]

BUMP, because there are so many new threads about OBS! O_o
(please, increase the page length for everyone!)

 

[lucrus]

I know this is old, but I'm experiencing the same problem with both OBS 22 (as packaged by Debian in the latest stable release) and OBS 25 (as packaged by Debian in the current testing release). However it used to work until a few weeks ago, so I suspect it can be related to some third party library update (I'm tracking Debian Testing, so I often update libraries).

 

[abra]

did anyone manage to find out the root cause? I'm on the latest version of OBS and recently had the exact same issue. It was recording well for the first 1.5 hours, and thereafter the audio went silent even though there was no user intervention at all.

 

[Harold]

did anyone manage to find out the root cause? I'm on the latest version of OBS and recently had the exact same issue. It was recording well for the first 1.5 hours, and thereafter the audio went silent even though there was no user intervention at all.

Please post in your own thread. The original thread is over 3 years old and likely NOT the same issue.

 

[Umair Ijaz]

Only solution that worked for me is:
Go To Settings > Video
Within this make sure you have same resolution for Base and Output.
I was getting the same error and got frustrated, my base resolution was 1980x1080 and Output was: 1280X750
So I changed the output to 1980x20 after validating my system screen resolution from display settings