force stop / restart VirtualCam streams

[ahmadnassri]

sometimes when starting OBS, VirtualCam fails to start, the only message I see is "Failed to start output"

I suspect this is due to some of the automation scripts I got where occasionally chrome/zoom would start, then quickly turn off and then start again soon after in certain conditions ... they then fail to display the camera, and if I restart OBS VirtualCamera fails to start with the message above .... I'm guessing the VirtualCam is not able to get a lock on the write stream due to many clients attempting to read from it at the same time??

is there a method to stop the VirtualCam subprocess / or to kill / reset the write stream?

thanks.

[TheAmazingDani]

Hi, have you resolved this? I am having the same issue. Thanks.

[ahmadnassri]

I have not. when this happens, seems like chrome is getting an exclusive lock on the virtual device, so killing the chrome instance entirely is the only way to fix it (no background process)

same with zoom, but less frequently occurring with zoom

[deurk]

Would be nice to have a workaround other than closing all chrome instances