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When OBS audio goes silent, first check the source’s meter in the OBS Audio Mixer while the sound should be playing. If the meter is not moving, troubleshoot playback or capture; if it is moving, check mute, fader, track assignment, and output. If only your headphones or speakers are silent, investigate monitoring separately: monitoring is not the same as audio reaching a recording or live stream.
There is no single established overnight OBS fault behind every silent sleep-sounds stream. The source type, operating system, OBS version, and affected signal path matter, so use the meter to narrow down the cause before changing devices or drivers.
Why does my OBS audio stop after running all night?
OBS audio can appear to fail at different points in the signal path: the sound may stop playing, OBS may stop capturing it, the stream or recording may lose it, or only local monitoring may go quiet. Those symptoms call for different checks. Start with the Audio Mixer meter when the silence occurs, not with a hardware replacement or a stream setting chosen at random.
OBS issue reports describe monitoring symptoms in particular setups, including device reconnection and looping-media scenarios. They do not establish one cause for all overnight sleep-sounds streams.
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Diagnose the silence from the OBS meter
If the source meter is not moving
Check the source and capture path first:
- Confirm the relevant source is active in the current scene and that the sound is still playing in its source application or Media Source.
- Check that the source is using the intended audio device. If the sound comes from a capture device, confirm that device is still selected and available.
- Check whether the operating system or playback application is still sending audio. A silent or stopped source cannot produce a signal for OBS to capture.
- If the audio device is set up in a scene, check the scene’s Audio Input Capture or Audio Output Capture source. OBS supports scene-specific device capture, but selecting the same device both there and under Settings → Audio can cause echo. Prefer one deliberate capture route for each device, then watch the meter again. OBS source guide
If the meter remains inactive while the sound should be playing, the problem is upstream of the mixer’s output controls. Establish whether playback itself has stopped or the selected capture route has failed before changing stream settings.
If the source meter is moving
A moving meter shows that OBS is receiving a source signal. Check the rest of the route:
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- In the Audio Mixer, make sure the source is not muted and its fader is not turned down.
- Check that the source is assigned to the audio track used by the stream or recording. A meter can move even when the output you are checking does not use that track.
- Test the actual output independently: make a short recording or verify the live stream’s audio. Do not assume viewers have lost sound just because you cannot hear local monitoring.
OBS documents the mixer meter, fader, mute, track, and monitoring controls; use them to identify which part of the route is failing rather than treating them as interchangeable. OBS audio mixer guide
Tell monitoring problems apart from stream problems
If a recording or stream has audio but your headphones or speakers do not, focus on local monitoring. In OBS, check the selected monitoring device and the source’s monitoring mode. The mixer’s monitor control affects what you hear locally; it does not by itself prove whether the stream output contains audio. OBS audio mixer guide
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One project report describes monitoring stopping after an audio-device reconnection, a Mac lock, or a restart. The reporter used the monitoring toggle to recover in that setup, which ran macOS 14 and OBS 30.2.3. Treat toggling monitoring as a diagnostic recovery check, not a guaranteed permanent fix for other versions or systems. OBS Studio issue report
Check looping Media Source playback separately
If sleep sounds come from an audio-only Media Source, verify that playback is still running and watch its mixer meter through a loop or scene transition. A report for one setup describes monitoring loss around scene changes, playback stopping or restarting, and looping. It does not establish that the stream output also failed. If the meter moves, test a recording or live output before concluding that viewers hear silence. OBS Studio issue report
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Record the facts before changing devices or drivers
To make the fault reproducible and avoid changing several things at once, note:
- Your operating system and OBS version.
- Whether the sound comes from a Media Source, browser or app, capture device, or globally captured desktop device.
- The selected capture and monitoring devices, and whether the device was disconnected or reconnected.
- Whether the OBS meter moves during the silence.
- Whether the failure affects local monitoring, a recording, the live stream, or more than one of these.
- Whether silence begins after a scene transition, playback stop or restart, device reconnect, host lock, or restart.
These observations narrow the affected part of the signal path. The cause for an unspecified setup cannot be determined from the symptom alone.
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Or let it run in the cloud
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