How to Prevent OBS Studio from Crashing in Windows?

OBS Studio crashing is an issue that often occurs when you are using a third-party add-on with the client on your computer. This can include any extensions that you have installed via the DLL files or even the StreamElements Live plugin for OBS.

In such an instance, you will need to remove the third-party add-ons from the OBS client or uninstall the SE.Live plugin from your PC to resolve the crashes with OBS Studio. In this article, we will be taking you through a number of fixes that should help isolate the problem in your system. 

1. Run OBS Studio as Administrator

The first thing that you should start off with when facing crashes with OBS Studio is to run the program as an admin. In some cases, OBS Studio can crash when the client does not have sufficient permissions to run in the environment, or a third-party security program is interfering with the app.

Running the program with administrative privileges will ensure it is able to access system resources with the required permissions and prevent alteration from a background process. To run OBS Studio as an admin, follow the instructions below:

1. First, open the Start Menu on your PC.
2. In the Start Menu, search for OBS Studio.
3. Then, click on the Run as administrator option on the left-hand side.

   

4. Click Yes on the follow-up User Account Control dialog box.
5. See if OBS Studio crashes now. 

2. Install Windows Updates

If you are running an older version of Windows on your machine, this can cause the OBS Studio app to crash as well. You will often encounter this after a recent update which requires a newer version of the Windows build on your system.

Installing Windows updates can be important as they include feature updates and are often required by the various programs you use on your PC. To update your Windows, follow the instructions below:

1. First, open the Settings app with the Windows key + I shorthand on your keyboard.
2. In the Settings app, go to Windows Update.

   

3. After that, use the Check for updates button to see if any updates are available.

   

4. Wait for the Windows Update service to download and install available updates on your system.
5. After your PC restarts, open OBS Studio and see if the problem is still there.

3. Update Graphics Drivers

Another potential cause for the crashes with OBS Studio can be the graphics drivers installed on your computer. The video drivers are important for OBS since they are often used for encoding your stream before it is sent over the network to the destination. 

In some instances, an inconsistency with the display drivers can cause an issue while you are live and result in the program crashing. As such, you will need to reinstall the drivers on your system. This will also update your graphics drivers since you will be performing a fresh install. 

Follow the instructions below to do so:

1. To start off, you will need to download the Display Driver Uninstaller tool. Do this from the official source here.
2. Then, uncompress the downloaded file to any location on your drive.
3. After that, run the Display Driver Uninstaller.exe file. 
4. This will open up DDU. Click the Continue button on the Options screen.

   

5. After that, you will need to choose the device type. Select GPU from the Select device type menu.

   

6. Then, choose the brand of your GPU from the Select device menu.

   

7. Finally, to uninstall the drivers, use the Clean and restart option.

   

8. After your PC boots up, open a browser and head to your video card manufacturer’s website.
9. Download the latest drivers for your card and install them.
10. See if that resolves the issue. 

4. Delete Third-Party Plugins

You can install plugins in OBS Studio that allow you to add additional functionality to the application. This can be used to tweak specific settings or how your sources interact on the app. These plugins are loaded as modules when the program starts.

If you are using a problematic plugin in your OBS installation, it can cause the app to crash constantly. In such an instance, you will need to delete the DLL file of the plugin. OBS plugins use DLL files to interact with the program. As such, removing the DLL file will get rid of the plugin as well. 

To see a list of the plugins used by OBS, you will have to bring up the logs. Follow the instructions below to locate and delete plugins:

1. First, open the OBS Studio on your computer.
2. After that, click on the Help option and go to Log Files > View Current Log.

   

3. Then, on the Log Viewer screen, scroll up to the Loaded Modules section as shown in the picture below.

   

4. These are the plugins that are used by OBS Studio. If you have manually added any DLL files to this list, you will need to delete them.
5. To do this, open the File Explorer window.

   

6. Then, navigate to the installation directory of OBS. By default, it is installed in the Program Files directory inside the system drive (C:).

   

7. In the OBS Studio folder, open the obs-plugins > 64bit folder.

   

8. Now, locate the DLL file listed under the Loaded Modules section that you added and delete it. You will need to close OBS Studio before doing this.
9. Finally, open OBS Studio to see if the problem persists. 

5. Uninstall SE.Live

SE.Live is a plugin for OBS Studio that allows you to add all of the StreamElements features directly to your OBS Studio. This essentially adds additional functionality to the streaming application so you are able to manage your streams in a better manner.

However, in some instances, the version of SE.Live that you are using can cause compatibility issues with the OBS Studio version and cause the program to crash. In such a situation, you will need to uninstall the SE.Live plugin from your computer to resolve the issue.

To do this, follow the instructions below:

1. First, open the Start Menu and search for the Control Panel. Open up the Control Panel.

   

2. In the Control Panel window, click the Uninstall a program option.

   

3. After that, locate StreamElements SE.Live option from the list of apps.

   

4. Double-click on the option to uninstall it from your computer.
5. Then, open OBS Studio to see if it still crashes. 

6. Reinstall OBS Studio

In some instances, the installation of OBS Studio can also result in the app crashing constantly on your computer. This happens when there is an inconsistency in the program, it can be damaged, corrupted or malfunctioning altogether. There are various reasons which can cause such inconsistencies, incorrect recent updates, and more.

In such a situation, you will need to reinstall the application on your computer to resolve the problem. To do this, follow the instructions below:

1. Open the Control Panel by searching for it in the Start Menu.

   

2. After that, go to the Uninstall a program section.

   

3. Then, locate OBS Studio from the list of apps and double-click on it.

   

4. Go through the on-screen prompts to complete the uninstallation.
5. After that, download the OBS Studio setup from the official website here.
6. Install the app and see if the issue is still there.

7. Perform Clean Boot

Finally, if none of the above methods resolves the problem for you, the crashes are likely the outcome of an app running in the background interfering with the OBS Studio process. In such a situation, you will have to do a clean boot.

Clean booting Windows means starting the operating system with only the essential services running on startup. This will disable all of the third-party apps on startup, and thus, they will not be able to intervene with OBS Studio. 

If the problem goes away once you perform a clean boot, you will need to locate the culprit on your system by enabling the services one by one. Follow the instructions below to perform a clean boot:

1. First, open the Win key + R shorthand to open Run.
2. Type in msconfig in the Run box and press Enter.

   

3. In the System Configuration window, go to the Services tab and tick the Hide all Microsoft services option.

   

4. After that, click the Disable all option to disable third-party services.

   

5. Then, click Apply to save the changes.
6. Follow this up by switching to the Startup tab and clicking the Open Task Manager option.

   

7. In the Startup tab of the Task Manager, select the apps one by one and click Disable.

   

8. After that, restart your PC to perform a clean boot.
9. Open OBS Studio to see if the issue is there. 

That is it, you should be able to stop the OBS Studio crashes with the solutions provided above. In most cases, the crashes with OBS Studio are associated with the plugins that you are using. Therefore, ensure there are no problematic apps being loaded to OBS Studio to prevent the issue from occurring in the future. 

In case OBS Studio is still crashing, you will need to reach out to the official support team for OBS Studio. To do this, you will need to create a post on the OBS Forums. The support team will be able to locate the root cause of the issue by viewing the crash logs generated by the program. This should help you in isolating the problem once and for all.