OBS Metrics (Troubleshooting Starter)

It's important to understand some key metrics that OBS provides you right from the app while you're streaming! While you have an active stream, take a look at the bottom line on your OBS app. This will be a powerful tool for insight on your bandwidth health. 

Dropped Frames

If you begin seeing a count, this means your connection to remote server isn't stable or you can't keep up with your set bitrate. Because of this, the program was forced to drop some of the video frames in order to compensate. If you drop too many frames, you may be disconnected from the streaming server.

If you're experiencing issues, please see some forums from OBS directly.

LIVE

The duration for how long your stream has been active

REC

With OBS, you have the option to Start Recording while you are streaming. This will show you the duration of your recording. 

*This will save to your local device but could be a good option if you notice you're having some challenges with your livestreams. By recording, you can upload that recorded file into Union. 

CPU

Thanks to the OBS forum, they talk a little bit about troubleshooting your CPU if you experience "encoding overloaded". Be sure to check out the forum for more insight on possible ways to help adjust this. 

Encoding video is a very CPU-intensive operation, and OBS is no exception. OBS uses the best open source video encoding library available, x264, to encode video. However, some people might experience high CPU utilization, and other programs running on your computer might experience degraded performance while OBS is active if your settings are too high for your computer's hardware. In some cases, OBS will say "Encoding overloaded!" on its status bar, meaning that your computer can't encode your video fast enough to maintain the settings you have it set to, which will cause video to freeze after a few seconds, or periodic stuttering.

Color Keys

You will see a box that is either Green, Yellow, or Red. This is your bandwidth health and here are what each color represents.

• Green: You're golden and should have little challenges with your stream
• Yellow: Warning 
• Red: Problem

Kb/s

This tells you how much network traffic is being pushed.