Question / Help Max Audio Buffering Reached. FB Live Audio Bitrate is Fine for 5 min then Drops Low and Never Recovers

Greetings,
I'm streaming to Facebook Live using OBS. Video and audio are fine for about 5 min, then the audio bitrate in Facebook shows a dip from 130 Kbps to 2.7 Kbps; the audio drops out in FB and never recovers; although, I still see audio still spiking within the OBS waveform. The OBS log file mentions 'Max audio buffering reached'. Is it as simple as checking the 'Use Custom Buffer Size' within 'OBS > Output > Streaming > Advanced' and increasing the 'Buffer Size'? This is probably a settings thing, but I'm not sure what I'll mess up if I start playing with things. Some older posts mention this issue, but I haven't seen any resolutions other than suggestion moving to xSplit. Has anyone else resolved or worked-around this issue? Thanks

Possible Solution (updated 8/23/2019) - OBS Studio Beta 24.0.0-rc1 (https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/obs-studio-24-0-release-candidate.109625/): I upgraded and briefly tested the new 24.0.0 release candidate (uninstalled OBS Studio 23.21, xSplit, StreamLabs OBS). I streamed for about 20 min and didn't see any log messages for 'adding 23 ms of audio buffer'. I did however, received the 'Max Audio Buffer Reached' message, but directly after that I saw a message of 'adding 896 ms of audio buffering' (see attached log) and the audio didn't drop out. In v23.21 the log would immediately show a number of 'adding 23 ms of audio buffer' until the audio would drop after 5 min and never return. Possible side effect - In addition to upgrading to 24.0.0, I did also update my sound driver in Device Manager prior to the installation.

My Workaround (updated 8/14/2019) - VLC Media Source instead of Media Source: After MANY trial and error sessions (settings in OBS, camera, lapel vs. XLR mic, Windows updates), I found a way to stream video and audio without getting the max audio buffer reached. Instead of using OBS's Media Source, I used the VLC Media Source (need to download 64-bit VLC Player). Things still aren't perfect though, as VLC Media Source has a constant popping / crackling sound as if there's a fireplace living in my camera. I tried lot of different settings (sample rates, bit rates in camera and OBS) to remove the popping, but not luck (update 8/23/2019 - I've identified the Video Asyc as the culprit of the constant popping; add it and I get popping, remove it and the popping is gone). My only workaround for the workaround popping within VLC Media Source is to also open VLC Media Player and connect to my network stream, then within OBS use the VLC Media Source video (since that one doesn't lag like VLC Media Player) but disable its sound and instead use the desktop audio sound from VLC Media Player. There isn't any popping in the VLC Media Player sound. Downsides are that the sound is way out of sync from the video, my stream can get other unwanted desktop sounds, another app open mean more CPU usage, and just adds another step to the process for the volunteer teens that are helping out. I REALLY wish that there was a fix for the Media Source audio buffering issue; as everything (video/audio) works perfectly until the max buffer is reached occurs and the audio cuts out after 5 min. Oddly enough, I was finally able to get the Media Source to stream for about 10 min instead of 5 min. The only thing that seemed different than things that I've tried in the past is that I had VLC Media Player open and I checked the 'seekable' checkbox in the Media Source settings. The logs too much longer to show the adding XX ms of audio buffer message. When I close VLC Media Player, the message shows right away and reaches the max quicker.

While it is nice that you fixed your problem, the timestamps that occurs in audio and video files are not date+time in the regular meaning. Instead, these timestamps measure milliseconds from the beginning of the video file. They are relative to the beginning of the file, so these are independent from the actual date+time of the device. It's not important if the actual date+time of the device is correct or not, it's only important that a millisecond on the device is as long as a millisecond on your computer.

koala said:

While it is nice that you fixed your problem, the timestamps that occurs in audio and video files are not date+time in the regular meaning. Instead, these timestamps measure milliseconds from the beginning of the video file. They are relative to the beginning of the file, so these are independent from the actual date+time of the device. It's not important if the actual date+time of the device is correct or not, it's only important that a millisecond on the device is as long as a millisecond on your computer.

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You are correct Koala, it wasn't the timestamps thanks. I've updated updated my message above to suggest the VLC Media Source instead of Media Source.

Same buffering issue. New problem. I’m using a Denon mixer and serato software. Was working fine started getting glitchy awhile back. Now it’s non-functional. Couple minutes of audio and boom max buffer limit reached.