OBS troubleshooting

Fix a black or empty overlay, missing alert sound, stutter, an outdated view, wrong size and find the OBS log file.

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Most overlay problems in OBS come down to the browser source settings. Before you change anything, open the Stream check on the PX Studio home page: it tells you whether OBS has loaded your overlay at all. "Opened in a browser, not in OBS yet" means the link works but OBS has not loaded it. For problems with alerts, the bot or connections, see Troubleshooting.

The source is black or empty

Check the URL in the source properties. Copy it again in PX Studio with Copy OBS URL and paste it. After Reset the OBS link the old URL no longer works.
Check that the source is visible: the eye icon in the Sources list must be on, and the scene must be the one that is live.
Check the order in the Sources list. A source higher in the list covers everything below it, so the overlay belongs above your game or camera.
Click Refresh cache of current page in the source properties.
Turn off Shutdown source when not visible. With it on, OBS unloads the page whenever its scene is not active.
Try toggling Enable Browser Source Hardware Acceleration under Settings → Advanced → Sources and restart OBS.

An empty overlay is not always a fault: if no widget is visible in the live PX Studio scene, there is nothing to draw. Check the canvas in the editor and click Make program scene for the scene you want on stream.

"Couldn't load that page!"

OBS shows this page inside the source when it cannot reach the URL. The error line below it names the cause:

Server's IP address not found or Connection timed out: check your internet connection and that the URL is complete.
Server's SSL certificate is outdated or your computer's time is incorrect: correct the date and time of your computer.
Failed to connect: click Click here to retry, then copy the URL fresh from PX Studio.

The overlay looks out of date

PX Studio sends changes live, so an old view usually means the page lost its connection or loaded old files.

Right-click the source and choose Refresh.
If that does not help, open the properties and click Refresh cache of current page.
Make sure you are looking at the right overlay: each overlay has its own link.

The background is not transparent

The PX Studio overlay has a transparent background. If you see white or black behind it, the Custom CSS field of the source was changed. Restore the default, which sets the page background to transparent and removes margins and scroll bars:

Text

body { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px auto; overflow: hidden; }

Wrong size, blurry or cut off

Width and Height in the source properties must match your overlay resolution (editor: Canvas resolution, by default 1920 × 1080). A smaller value cuts widgets off at the edge.
If the overlay looks blurry, the source was probably set to a small size and then dragged larger in the preview. Set the real size in the properties and use Fit to screen (Ctrl+F, on macOS Cmd+F).
Reset Transform (Ctrl+R, on macOS Cmd+R) undoes scaling and cropping.
In PX Studio, Add to OBS → Set up automatically offers Repair source and Fit source to canvas. See Add to OBS.

No alert sound

In the PX Studio Alertbox, check Sound & voice and play a Test alert.
In the source properties, turn on Control audio via OBS. The source then appears in the Audio Mixer.
In the Audio Mixer, make sure the source is not muted and its fader is not all the way down.
If only you cannot hear it, open Edit → Advanced Audio Properties and set Audio Monitoring to Monitoring Enabled. Check the Monitoring Device under Settings → Audio → Advanced.
If viewers cannot hear it but you can, make sure Audio Monitoring is not on Monitor Only (mute output).

Stutter, dropped frames or high CPU and GPU use

OBS needs graphics power to put your scenes together. When the game takes all of it, OBS shows "encoding overloaded" or the output stutters. The OBS guide recommends:

On Windows, run OBS as administrator, so Windows reserves some graphics capacity for it.
Cap the frame rate of your game to your monitor refresh rate or turn on V-Sync.
Close other programs that use the graphics card.
Use few browser sources and keep their width and height as small as needed. Use an Image source for static pictures.
Lower the output resolution or frame rate under Settings → Video, for example from 60 to 30 FPS.

One PX Studio overlay source carries all widgets, so you rarely need more than one browser source for PX Studio.

Find the OBS log file

OBS writes a log file every time it runs. Support volunteers and PX Studio support use it to see what went wrong.

Reproduce the problem with OBS still open.
Open Help → Log Files.
Choose Upload Current Log File to get a link you can share, View Current Log to read it, or Show Log Files to open the folder. Upload Previous Log File is the log of the last session.

After a crash, use Help → Crash Reports → Upload Previous Crash Report.

Still stuck

Ask Pix in the corner of this page, or email [email protected] with your overlay name, what you see and the link to your OBS log. The settings themselves are explained in OBS browser source.

Sources

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