Fix OBS

OBS troubleshooting center

Narrow down black screens, encoder overload, dropped frames, audio failures, and more with an adaptive wizard — or paste an OBS log for safe, redacted analysis. This site does not modify your OBS installation.

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Black screen

Capture sources show black frames

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Capture failures

Sources fail to hook or open devices

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Encoder overload

Encoding overloaded and related capacity failures

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Rendering lag

Compose/render path missing deadlines

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Encoding lag

Skipped frames from encoding lag

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Dropped frames

Network and delivery frame drops

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Poor quality

Blockiness, softness, banding

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Recording issues

Disk, container, and recording hitch problems

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Audio failures

Missing or duplicated audio

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Audio delay

Lipsync and monitoring delay

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Audio drift

Sample rate and long-session drift

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Echo

Monitoring echo and acoustic feedback

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Crackling & clipping

Distortion, pops, and clipping

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Webcam

Camera device problems

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Capture card

HDMI capture cards and signals

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Browser Source

CEF overlays and widgets

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Virtual Camera

OBS Virtual Camera output

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Plugins

Third-party plugin compatibility

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Crashes

Launch and output crash loops

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Auth failures

Keys, OAuth, firewall auth problems

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Stream disconnections

Reconnect loops and ingest drops

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Color & HDR

Range, HDR washout, color pipelines

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Resolution & scaling

Canvas and output scaling mistakes

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Replay Buffer

Memory and save failures

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Hotkeys

Hotkey conflicts and permissions

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Laptop multi-GPU

iGPU/dGPU affinity issues

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Windows permissions

Game Mode, AV, admin integrity

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macOS permissions

Screen Recording and Accessibility

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Linux display

Wayland, X11, and portals

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Featured issues

Echo · warning

Acoustic feedback through open speakers

Room echo from loudspeakers entering the microphone.

Stream disconnections · warning

Aggressive reconnect storm after brief drops

OBS reconnects so aggressively after a blip that the platform session becomes unstable.

Windows permissions · warning

Antivirus locking recordings or causing hitch

Realtime antivirus scanning recording folders causes hitching, corrupt files, or high CPU.

Audio delay · warning

Audio delay / lipsync offset

Mic or desktop audio is early or late relative to video.

Audio drift · warning

Audio drift over long sessions

Mic and desktop slowly desynchronize during multi-hour streams.

Poor quality · warning

Blocky stream from insufficient bitrate

Stream looks blocky or muddy in motion despite smooth frame timing.

Browser Source · warning

Browser Source hardware acceleration issues

Browser Source glitches, goes black, or spikes GPU when hardware acceleration paths misbehave.

Browser Source · warning

Browser Source memory growth

RAM climbs over time from Browser Sources leaking or refreshing heavy pages.

Rendering lag · warning

Browser sources driving GPU render lag

CEF browser sources push GPU/CPU high and elevate rendering lag.

Capture card · warning

Capture card colors crushed or shifted

Capture card image looks crushed, oversaturated, or limited-range wrong.

Capture card · critical

Capture card shows no signal

Video Capture Device from a capture card stays black with no signal.

Capture card · warning

Capture card video OK but audio missing

HDMI video from the capture card looks fine while card audio never arrives in OBS.

All diagnostic issues