Is there some sort of cap on how far HLS DVR playback can go? I know m3u8 manifests have the 7200 s

Is there some sort of cap on how far HLS DVR playback can go?
I know m3u8 manifests have the 7200 segment limit, but we're not anywhere close to that. I know it's not time-based because some will go for 4+ hours without issue, while others can start losing the first 30+ minutes of the stream as soon as 70 minutes in. And I don't think it's bytes because I've had issues with some small 480p files much smaller than our normal ones that are fine.
Using OBS + rtmps, but have a couple dozen PC sources so not everyone's encoder settings are the same.
Have also tried pushing some pre-recorded mp4s live via ffmpeg/rtmps and have had similar inconsistencies with those.
We don't use dash and I don't know if it's supposed to support DVR but I threw ?dvrEnabled=true on one and it also only went back to the same spot.

If there's not a retention cap, then it has to be something with the encoding but I haven't been able to figure out the commonalities between the ones that have issues. Any ideas what could cause that?

Cclaass Is there some sort of cap on how far HLS DVR playback can go? I know m3u8 manif...

1984 Ford Laser•8/31/25, 2:14 AM

Go to the metrics tab of one of your live inputs and check out the Upload-to-Duration ratio. Would be interesting to know if your client is sending wildly fluctuating packets. I do at least a dozen 3+ hour live streams a week, use dvrEnabled=true and don't have the issues you're describing

1984 Ford Laser•8/31/25, 2:15 AM

Zoomed in a bit to make the image a bit more helpful

Cclaass Is there some sort of cap on how far HLS DVR playback can go? I know m3u8 manif...

1984 Ford Laser•8/31/25, 2:17 AM

Can you provide an example of OBS settings that have given you issues?

claassOP•8/31/25, 2:32 AM

A current example, actually. Not my PC nor me streaming. Up for nearly 3 hours at this point but could only go back less than 1.5 hours.

1984 Ford Laser•8/31/25, 2:48 AM

woah that upload to duration ratio is not great at all

claassOP•8/31/25, 2:48 AM

Has also happened with NVENC H.264 encoder today. Need to check on the rest of their settings. But had the issue with the left picture. No issue on a different stream by same person after that, on the right.

1984 Ford Laser•8/31/25, 2:49 AM

Are you working with mobile networks or something?

11984 Ford Laser woah that upload to duration ratio is not great at all

1984 Ford Laser•8/31/25, 2:50 AM

on my end the lowest ratio I see is like 90+% and can go as high as 150%

1984 Ford Laser•8/31/25, 2:51 AM

Are these users located far away from you geographically? I wonder if general network routing could cause something like this

1984 Ford Laser•8/31/25, 2:53 AM

This is from the same stream I sent before now its been running for a while

1984 Ford Laser•8/31/25, 2:57 AM

oh your keyframe intervals also wildly fluctuate

1984 Ford Laser•8/31/25, 2:57 AM

I wonder if your users are seeing any dropped frames in OBS

1984 Ford Laser•8/31/25, 2:58 AM

x264 could totally contribute to an inconsistent encoding output

1984 Ford Laser•8/31/25, 2:58 AM

especially if the hardware is being strained in any meaningful way while doing the encoding

claassOP•8/31/25, 3:00 AM

Troubleshooting page
"It should be a consistent flat line below 90%. If you see an inconsistent or wavy line, or a line that is consistently above 100%, try the following troubleshooting steps:"

Admittedly they're not flat but they are under 90% most of the time, thought over 100% was potentially problematic.

Not mobile networks. Pretty spread out geographically. No dropped frames listed in OBS ever.

My guess has been it's related to keyframes/open GOP/b frames but haven't been able to pinpoint.

claassOP•8/31/25, 3:10 AM

My personal ones never fluctuate with NVENC, which is probably why I've not been able to recreate the issue myself through OBS.
Will have them try keyint, min-keyint, disable scenecut and maybe disable b frames. and see if we can get a constant and closed keyframe and what happens.

claassOP•8/31/25, 3:19 AM

Are your keyframes always constant @1984 Ford Laser ?

1984 Ford Laser•8/31/25, 3:20 AM

Direct from OBS no

1984 Ford Laser•8/31/25, 3:20 AM

But also working with mobile networks

1984 Ford Laser•8/31/25, 3:20 AM

claassOP•8/31/25, 3:21 AM

Still far more stable though.

1984 Ford Laser•8/31/25, 3:21 AM

yeah absolutely

claassOP•8/31/25, 3:21 AM

Cool. Appreciate your time and help!

1984 Ford Laser•8/31/25, 3:21 AM

No worries mate happy to help

1984 Ford Laser•8/31/25, 5:55 AM

@claass another thought I had, do you create the live inputs for your users? Live inputs use Durable Objects under the hood, so I wonder if you're creating a really far away DO instance that's causing less than ideal routing for your users. You aren't broadcasting from outback australia by chance?

claassOP•8/31/25, 1:09 PM

We do, will keep that in mind.
I was able to recreate the issue myself overnight (on a live input I created myself). Switched to x264 on simple mode and got this. Then did a subsequent one on advanced with keyframe = 2 (hence the big keyframe dropoff and leveling) but still had the issue again.
Retrying now with x264 options keyint=60 min-keyint=60 scenecut=0 closed-gop=1.
I'm thinking B frames are crossing GOPs. But I'm not sure that explains the issue happening for NVENC/QSV encoders since to my understanding those are supposed to be closed GOPs by default.

Honk!•8/31/25, 6:01 PM

can i use stream as like aws mediaconvert? and also images service to handle tranformas

Honk!•8/31/25, 6:01 PM

i don't want to deal with ffmpeg and sharp tho

HHonk!can i use stream as like aws mediaconvert? and also images service to handle tra...

1984 Ford Laser•8/31/25, 10:14 PM

I think using Stream purely as an encoding service only is against ToS but don't quote me, I swear I read it somewhere

Honk!•8/31/25, 10:18 PM

hmm need an official answer tho, like docs doesn't mention anything about it

Honk!•8/31/25, 10:27 PM

the real thing is im also using r2 too tho so i already store the users data

Honk!•8/31/25, 10:27 PM

just need a process for both

HHonk!can i use stream as like aws mediaconvert? and also images service to handle tra...

Hello, I’m Allie!•9/1/25, 12:26 AM

Use Media Transformations https://developers.cloudflare.com/stream/transform-videos/

Cloudflare Docs

Transform videos

You can optimize and manipulate videos stored outside of Cloudflare Stream with Media Transformations. Transformed videos and images are served from one of your zones on Cloudflare.

HHello, I’m Allie!Use Media Transformations https://developers.cloudflare.com/stream/transform-vid...

Honk!•9/1/25, 3:38 AM

so i guess its a yes for cf images too tho for its a valid use case for TOS then? asking for just to be sure

HHonk!so i guess its a yes for cf images too tho for its a valid use case for TOS then...

Hello, I’m Allie!•9/1/25, 4:09 AM

Using Image Transformations, it should be fine. But iirc, anything that has its own storage, requires you to serve from said storage

Hello, I’m Allie!•9/1/25, 4:10 AM

I can try to find exact details on Tuesday

Mindbender999•9/1/25, 4:12 AM

I’m trying to let an employee upload videos to the cloudflare “Stream” video hosting, but there’s doesn’t appear to be any user permissions for stream and even if I set her up as admin she doesn’t have stream enabled on her dashboard?

Terra Incognita•9/2/25, 2:03 AM

Hello, is there support for delivering >50,000 minutes of video content each month? Trying to find info about this

TTerra Incognita Hello, is there support for delivering >50,000 minutes of video content each mon...

1984 Ford Laser•9/2/25, 2:14 AM

Delivering or storing? Delivering is post-paid, and you can choose any amount of storage that you want. I have 25k minutes storage and deliver easily 500k+ minutes a month

11984 Ford Laser Delivering or storing? Delivering is post-paid, and you can choose any amount of...

Terra Incognita•9/2/25, 2:16 AM

Yeah, delivering!

Terra Incognita•9/2/25, 2:17 AM

post-paid? I'm trying to figure out how much that would cost

Terra Incognita•9/2/25, 2:17 AM

oh I found https://developers.cloudflare.com/stream/pricing/ disregard

Cloudflare Docs

Pricing

Cloudflare Stream lets you broadcast, store, and deliver video using a simple, unified API and simple pricing. Stream bills on two dimensions only:

Japanatron•9/2/25, 5:26 AM

Is it possible to enforce usage limits on Stream (e.g. bandwidth, simultaneous open streams, etc.)? I'm facing an issue with customers abusing the service.

HHello, I’m Allie!I can try to find exact details on Tuesday

Honk!•9/2/25, 3:43 PM

any news?

spence•9/3/25, 4:18 AM

Any reason form data from react native won’t work trying to upload a video via signed direct upload ur? I tested my code with webhook.site and it worked just fine. The response Cloudflare has a 400 request, text/plain content type and blob size 0

Cozmoz•9/4/25, 6:14 PM

Hi, I have created this post as I seem to be unable to retrieve Stream videos with cURL, any help would be appreciated.

https://community.cloudflare.com/t/authentication-error-on-stream-videos-curl-request/833424

Cclaass We do, will keep that in mind. I was able to recreate the issue myself overnight...

claassOP•9/6/25, 8:19 PM

Following up in case this ever happens to anyone else (and tagging @1984 Ford Laser since you were helping)
The issues with the x264 encoder in OBS were because that encoder does not have a closed GOP despite Cloudflare's documentation saying it does. Using scenecut=0 open-gop=0 fixed this.

And for the NVENC H.264 encoder, it is closed GOP by default. However, the "Look-ahead" option was messing with this. Didn't realize it right away though because in Simple Mode, Look-ahead is not shown on the GUI. However, looking at the OBS logs, it was still enabled for some people while disabled for others, not sure why. Moving to Advanced Mode and turning it off fixed it. Also used gopLength= just to be sure it stayed closed.

LeaderReader•9/9/25, 3:24 PM

I’ve been dealing with this issue for a bit: I have two live inputs both streaming to the same destination (e.g. Twitch). At first, only one input is enabled. When I switch the inputs by disabling the first input and enabling the second input, viewers see an offline screen for a few seconds. Is there a way to make input switching seamless so that the stream doesn’t appear disconnected during the switch?

Is there some sort of cap on how far HLS DVR playback can go? I know m3u8 manifests have the 7200 s

Similar Threads

Similar Threads

Similar Threads