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Troubleshooting broadcasting and streaming issues

General streaming issues

There is no stream in the preview player

For all broadcasts:

  1. Make sure to follow our broadcast guidelines
  2. Make sure you’ve copied the broadcast URL and stream name correctly to your encoder (no leading or trailing spaces)
  3. Make sure the event status in Clevercast is set to Preview or Started
  4. Make sure you have sufficient bandwidth and the broadcast is not blocked by your firewall
  5. For multilingual broadcasts, make sure the encoder configuration matches the broadcast protocol

Parts of the video are pixelated or distorted

The broadcasted bitrate of the stream is probably too low for its resolution.

The player embedded on my site doesn’t work

If no video is shown in the player on your site, check the following:

  1. Has the event been started in Clevercast?
  2. Is the player working in Clevercast? If it is, something is wrong with your embed code.
  3. If the player no longer works in Clevercast, even though it did before at another location, check your firewall. Try playing the video outside of your local network.

The live stream has some latency

A latency between 16 and 30 seconds (depending on device, connection) is the default for HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). If necessary, it can be lowered for your account (but this may cause problems for clients with slow internet connections).

There are black bands in the player

Your player has a fixed width/height that doesn’t corresponds to the aspect ratio of the streamed video (usually 16:9).

The player keeps spinning on iOS and/or Android

Your broadcast settings are probably not correct. For example, you may be broadcasting a multi-track SRT stream that also has 4 or 5 channels (instead of stereo or mono).

The stream appears to be in slow motion

This can happen exceptionally if you send a broadcast without keyframes (you shouldn’t do this).

I can’t hear multiple languages in my recording

Multilingual live streams are recorded as a single mp4 file which contain all languages as audio streams. If you download it, you need a player supporting this. VLC player, for example, lets you select the different audio languages.

SRT broadcast issues

Make sure to follow our encoder configuration guidelines.

No stream in the preview player

In addition to the general causes cited above, also check the following:

  • Is your event status set to Preview or Started ?
  • Are you broadcasting the same number of tracks (not channels) as the number of languages in Clevercast ?
  • If you’re using OBS Studio, make sure to press the ‘Start Recording‘ button (not ‘Start Streaming‘) ?

If this doesn’t work, try removing all additional languages from the Clevercast event and broadcast a single track. If this works, something is probably wrong with the configuration of your input or encoder.

Some languages are not working

Check if the configuration of both your input and encoder is correct. Make sure not to mix tracks and channels.

By default, Clevercast expects a single channel per track. If you are sending stereo tracks containing 2 languages (panned L+R), the Languages per track setting (on the Broadcast tab) should be set to 2.

OBS Studio disconnects for no apparent reason

The (variable) bitrate in OBS Studio’s Recording mode can fluctuate hard and peak high above the configured bitrate. Which in some cases can saturate the connection and result in a disconnect error.

To avoid this, make the bitrate more constant by setting the preset and x-264-params in your Video Encoder Settings of OBS Studio. See our online guide for OBS broadcasts. Or use another SRT encoder.

RTMP multi-channel broadcast issues

When using OBS Studio, follow our RTMP multi-channel guidelines.

No stream in the preview player

Check the following:

  • Is your event status set to Preview or Started ?
  • Are you broadcasting multiple channels (= NOT tracks) ?
  • If you are sending an RTMP broadcast with two languages in a stereo channel (panned L+R), the Languages per track setting (on the Broadcast tab) should be set to 2.

Some languages are not working

Make sure that your audio channel selection (eg 4.0) is the same for:

  • your Clevercast event
  • the configuration of your input device (eg Blackmagic DeckLink)
  • the ‘Channels’ control of the Audio settings in OBS Studio (OBS needs to be restarted after you change it)

Don’t mix channels and tracks! Make sure you only send one track (containing multiple channels) to Clevercast. To use channels with RTMP, audio panning must be done in hardware, not through OBS Studio.

Also make sure that you are broadcasting the same number of audio channels as the number of languages in your Clevercast event.

If you are using 5.1 or 7.1 channels, you must leave the 4th channel empty. OBS will encode it as LFE (for surround sound), so is not useable. Just leave it empty, Clevercast will ignore it.