When OBS Is Stuck On "Stopping" Recordings
2 years ago
Michigan, USA

I use OBS Studio to record MAME games and as a backup recording for the Fusion Sega emulator. I've had an issue where (a) it gets stuck on "Stopping..." a recording, and (b) the video frame rate gets worse and worse until it's skipping entire stages of the game, while the audio is intact. In fact, my one 1CC of Stack Columns, intended as a speedrun, did this, and it didn't even get it all the way to the end on the audio front, so I don't even quite have the audio-only standard of proof of it. My score (214,231) alone does not prove the 1CC, because some people have been ahead of it already before the final stage.

This issue was a lot worse when I recorded MAME, involving Windows PowerShell and running full-screen. Recording Fusion with it merely had a poor frame rate where I could still largely see what was going on in the game, and it didn't take forever to stop. This was pretty much MAME specific to me.

I initially solved it by downscaling the output resolution to the minimum, which still looks good, but then it later recurred, which is coincidental with Fusion's frame rate dropping from an initial perfect 60 (which was the case for my Columns III speedrun, thankfully!) to hovering in the low 50's, sometimes dipping into the 40's, which I generally don't notice in actual gameplay. I then found that running it in "admin" mode can solve it, and my next test worked fine, conveniently and somewhat embarrassingly losing to Richard so it was "only" a test. Running Fusion in admin mode did nothing to its frame rate.

However, I am worried this OBS freezing and loss of video will randomly recur when I get a speedrun or high score of this game on video.

So one question I have is: Can you recover a MKV file if it's damaged? If it gets stuck on "Stopping...", can it be saved by just waiting (even, say, waiting an hour and only then force-quitting or pressing the pause button, which somehow "worked" to stop it but left it incomplete and insufficient as proof?

The other major question I have is what other things could be done so that it doesn't freeze or lose video?

I wanted this thread to discuss what I think is a common issue with common recording software that a lot of new users, speedrunners and YouTubers would have.

Edited by the author 2 years ago
Finland

my obs gets stuck on "stopping recording" everytime too but just clicking the button again actually stops recording and fixes everything for me. video file works fine and isnt corrupted either

United States
Marcus_
He/Him, They/Them
2 years ago

I've had this issue as well before, I'd recommend just letting OBS do its thing in the background because it will definitely successfully stop at some point.

Michigan, USA

How long might it take? Sometimes a 15 minute video stops recording immediately, but other times it takes forever. I may have cut off its chance to process and finalize the video, because my last bad one was a smaller file size than the good one after that, which was shorter. Maybe I'll see if the file size is increasing during this time? If it is, it's definitely working, but if it's not, it doesn't prove it's not. If it's an important play, I can give it an hour or two. Holding out hope for an hour is better than giving up hope immediately. A recent test which merely displayed my personal top 7 scores took a few seconds to stop, but it did and it worked right.

I have not had this issue recording myself playing Fusion games, even "double recording" with Fusion's own recording for a non-commentated version, not even for a 30 minute and change speedrun - just MAME, which involves Windows PowerShell and must run full screen. I dare not risk pausing emulation there because I've had it crash afterwards then, not to mention it would invalidate a speedrun.

With my last bad one, running its log through the log analyzer turned up nothing critical, and there were two warnings about running it with Intel GPU hardware and non-standard aspect ratio (it expects 16:9 and my screen is 3:2.) When I tried changing the output resolution to something exactly 3:2 instead of larger numbers approximating it and changing the capture method to "Software" over "Hardware", I still got both warnings with a good video. And making a 16:9 base (canvas) resolution just causes it not to record the right third of the screen. Previous bad video logs had the critical alert of my CPU being overwhelmed.