obsproject / obsproject/obs-studio
[macOS] OBS crash on startup when system volume is running low on free space
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Description
Operating System Info
macOS 14
Other OS
No response
OBS Studio Version
30.1.2
OBS Studio Version (Other)
No response
OBS Studio Log URL
https://obsproject.com/logs/FKVlHTxYAoYb7GNW
OBS Studio Crash Log URL
No response
Expected Behavior
OBS Studio starts up correctly without the crash and pixels are visible on macOS Screen Capture source.
Current Behavior
OBS Studio app crashes on startup when disk is almost full.
Steps to Reproduce
Set up simple scene in OBS Studio.
- Open the OBS Studio app
- Add new Scene
- Add macOS Screen Capture source with default option to capture Built-In Retina Display
- On mac menu bar screen sharing picker is visible
Next part is to limit free disk space on macOS. Easiest approach is to create new volume.
- Open Disk Utility app
- Select System Volume
- Add an APFS volume to the selected container system container
- Select "Size Options..." and reserve ~ 95% of free space on system volume (leave ~ 1 GB free)
- Add new volume
- Restart OBS Studio
After creating new volume screen picker is gone and OBS Studio source preview is frozen with static frame and does not update. Restarting the OBS Studio app results in immediate crash on startup.
Anything else we should know?
This bug will trigger during normal use of mac and it does not require to have 5% of free space on machine. It may happen even when there is more than 15 GB free on system volume, but its occurrence is random.
After the crash, OBS Studio suggests to run in Safe Mode, but running in safe mode also results in crash of the app.
Quick investigation showed that similar issue with disk space was mentioned on other project: sessionprojector.app crashes when disk running out of space. macOS Screen Capture Content source is relaying on new API for screen capturing content called ScreenCaptureKit. I believe it may be correlated and I was able to stop picker on apps like Zoom or DisplayLink Manager, which makes me think that they also use this new API.
I believe there are other open-source projects that uses that API and this issue may be reproducible e.q. WebKit link
Issue is reproducible on latest macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 and macOS Sonoma 14.5 beta 3 with OBS Studio 30.1.2 on M2 Pro.
Attaching ips crashes and system profile.
MacBook Pro.spx.zip
OBS crashes.zip
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start with the attached OBS crash archives and system profile, then inspect the macOS Screen Capture source and its ScreenCaptureKit-related startup path. Reproduce the issue with approximately 1 GB of free system-volume space and verify that OBS starts normally and the macOS Screen Capture preview continues updating.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- macos
- Domain
- desktop, operating-systems
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 30/100