Streamlabs Dropped Frames and Disconnects: How Speedify Keeps the Stream Live

When the internet connection is bad, your stream can suffer dropped frames, buffering, pixelated video and even disconnects from the streaming server. When that happens:

• You appear unprofessional to your audience
• You may even lose followers, if this happens frequently
• The activity you’re streaming can also be affected: for example, you can lose progress in a game or people can miss important bits from a discussion or interview

Speedify works with any encoder. See Speedify for Twitch.

Troubleshooting Streamlabs OBS Internet Issues

Built on open-source OBS with alerts, widgets and layouts added, Streamlabs OBS still has to send your Twitch stream out through whatever internet connection your desk happens to have. That is the part that breaks: when the upload falters, Streamlabs OBS throws frames away and the streaming server drops you, in front of an audience. Some of it can be avoided with Streamlabs streaming best practices.

Speedify is a software app that pushes a stream through two or more internet connections at once, such as wired Ethernet plus 4G/5G cellular, so one sagging line cannot end the broadcast. With only one connection, Speedify works as an encrypted VPN: it can recover some lost packets, but it cannot stop that connection from dropping. Inside: troubleshooting steps, the Twitch test numbers, and what you gain by using Speedify rather than a hardware box like LiveU.

How to Stream with Streamlabs and Speedify

1. Download Speedify on the computer you stream from (Windows or macOS).
2. Open Speedify and create a free account (the free tier includes 5 GB per month), or sign in.
3. Add a second internet connection: for example, keep the computer on Ethernet and add a phone over USB or its Personal Hotspot. On a Mac, USB tethering works with an iPhone and with many Android phones.
4. Connect. Speedify sends the stream over both connections at once and moves it to the working one when one drops.
5. Open Streamlabs and go live as usual; the stream goes through Speedify.

The two most common causes of Streamlabs OBS problems, and how to fix each one:

• High CPU / GPU usage, which causes lagged and skipped frames, which can affect the stream quality.
  Solutions: lowering the quality, limiting FPS, use multiple of 30/60 FPS for your game settings, use hardware encoding instead of software encoding.
• Network issues, causing dropped frames and disconnects.
  Solutions: contact your ISP, choose another streaming server, restart your network equipment; more in this comprehensive troubleshooting guide.

Broadcasting with Streamlabs OBS needs a steady, fast internet connection so the stream’s video quality does not drop or disconnect. Speedify is built for live streaming, from optimizing live streams to keeping you online when one connection drops.

Streamlabs Keeps Disconnecting and Reconnecting: What to Check

A stream that disconnects and reconnects every few minutes means the link to the streaming server keeps breaking: the upload stalls long enough for the server to close the session. Check the Streamlabs stats for dropped frames just before each drop, switch from Wi-Fi to Ethernet if you can, pick a closer ingest server, and set the bitrate comfortably below what your upload can hold. If the drops come from the internet connection itself, add a second one: with Speedify combining two connections, one dropping does not end the session, and the stream keeps the same public IP address because it leaves through the Speedify server.

Fix Streamlabs OBS Dropped Frames and Avoid Disconnects

Many Twitch streamers use Streamlabs OBS for live streaming: it’s free, it’s got all the bells and whistles you may want, and it’s user-friendly.

Speedify helps content creators on Twitch and other platforms improve their live streams, so the Speedify team wanted to measure exactly how much. The team put Speedify to the test with Streamlabs OBS; the results follow, along with how you can improve your own live streams.

Speedify Helps Avoid Live Streaming Issues on Twitch with Streamlabs OBS

If you’re looking to try streaming with Speedify and StreamLabs OBS yourself, check out this Streamlabs OBS / Speedify tutorial to help you get started.

Testing Speedify with Streamlabs OBS on Twitch

There are many online reviews and discussions where streamers say Speedify helps their live streaming. The Speedify team tested it to see exactly how much, with the Speedify protocol in place.

Test setup: the goal was to measure Twitch streaming improvements with Streamlabs OBS when using Speedify vs. not using Speedify. The team ran multiple tests of 2 to 4 hours each, about how long Twitch streams last on average. Data comes from the Twitch Inspector tool.

All tests were conducted via Streamlabs OBS Studio on a PC with the following configuration:

Operating system: Windows 10 19H2
CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 3100 (4 core 8 threads), 3.9 Ghz
GPU: Gigabyte GTX 1060, 6 GB GDDR5


Video source: 1080p video file
Video resolution 1080p
Streaming quality: 1080p
Twitch streaming server: AT (Austria)
Speedify server: Vienna (Austria)

Streamlabs OBS settings were left to their default, using optimized encoder settings, with the stream optimizer active.

Testing scenarios: tests ran with and without Speedify using one or more of these Internet connections:

• Fibre optic 120 Mbps download / 60 Mbps upload
• Cellular internet: two 3G connections, 10 Mbps download / 5 Mbps upload
• Spotty Wi-Fi from neighbors

Here are the results:

Takeaways after testing:

• Even when using Speedify with a single fast connection (fibre), there’s an increase in performance of about 3%.
• When using a single slow and spotty Wi-Fi internet connection, Speedify improves the average bitrate by 12%.
• Speedify also added 11% to the average bitrate when combining the slow and spotty Wi-Fi connection with 2 cellular 3G connections of 10 / 5 Mbps each.

In this test, Speedify raised the average bitrate even on a single internet connection by recovering lost packets on the spotty Wi-Fi. Twelve percent might not seem like much, but in dropped frames and video quality it is noticeable.

The Speedify team tests Speedify with live streaming for each new release. The higher the packet loss rate on a connection, the bigger the improvement with Speedify, especially with Speedify’s UDP and Multi-TCP protocols.

If you need your stream to stay steady through internet variations, add a solution that combines internet connections, like Speedify. And speaking of those solutions…

Speedify Software vs. Hardware for Combining Connections: LiveU, Peplink

Another much more costly solution for combining connections comes in the form of dedicated hardware rigs, such as the LiveU series or Peplink routers. Ultimately it’s your choice, but here are the main perks Speedify brings to the table versus those hardware options:

• the Speedify protocol: opening up to 8 parallel sockets on each combined connection and intelligently utilizing them to prioritize your streaming traffic
• dedicated servers for those truly dedicated live streamers: more performance, closer to the streaming ingest servers, and guaranteed service level agreements.
• flexibility: you don’t have to carry a dedicated device for combining connections. Speedify can run on the device you’re streaming from, or you can use Speedify to set up your own router that combines connections on Windows or Linux.
• cost: only a small fraction of what you have to pay for the dedicated hardware.

For a real-world view, read what a live events streaming business has to say about Speedify.