OBS Studio on RPi5B

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1

Has anyone been able to get OBS-Studio going on an RPi5B with 16GB RAM running on this hardware, please? My RPi5B software version info is shown below. When I start OBS Studio I get the message: Failed to initialize video. Your GPU may not be supported, or your graphics drivers may need to be updated. When I checked software I think I have the latest versions. OBS Studio version is also listed below.

Many thanks
Brian

root@RPi501:/etc/modprobe.d# cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME=“Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)”
NAME=“Debian GNU/Linux”
VERSION_ID=“12”
VERSION=“12 (bookworm)”
VERSION_CODENAME=bookworm
ID=debian
HOME_URL=“https://www.debian.org/”
SUPPORT_URL=“Debian -- User Support”
BUG_REPORT_URL=“https://bugs.debian.org/”
root@RPi501:/etc/modprobe.d#

root@RPi501:/etc/modprobe.d# apt list obs-studio
Listing… Done
obs-studio/stable,now 29.0.2+dfsg-1+b1 arm64 [installed]
obs-studio/stable 29.0.2+dfsg-1+b1 armhf
root@RPi501:/etc/modprobe.d#
root@RPi501:/etc/modprobe.d# vulkaninfo | grep apiVersion
‘DISPLAY’ environment variable not set… skipping surface info
apiVersion = 1.2.289 (4202785)
apiVersion = 1.3.289 (4206881)
root@RPi501:/etc/modprobe.d#

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When I read this post I predicted that the issue would be that OBS needed Valkan to run.
So I googled “OBS studio valkan Debian.”

I was wrong!
It turns out the required 3d library is OpenGL with Mesa.

However, I when clicking round the links that came up I noticed a lot of people are saying it needs to be run on version 3.3 of MESA.
Maybe give that a go.

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3

Hi Jonny,

Thank you for the reply. The OBS forums posts were quite interesting. I tried their suggestion of starting my OBS as follows:

MESA_GL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=3.3 obs

and received a reply as follows:

Invalid desktop entry file: '/home/brian/.local/share/applications/com.obsproject.Studio.desktop

And the first bit of this text file before it heads off into a multitude of foreign language GenericName stuff reads:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=OBS Studio
GenericName=Streaming/Recording Software
Comment=Free and Open Source Streaming/Recording Software
Exec=MESA_GL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=3.3 obs
Icon=com.obsproject.Studio
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=AudioVideo;Recorder;
StartupNotify=true
StartupWMClass=obs

GenericName[an_ES]=Programa de retransmisión/gravación
Comment[an_ES]=Program de retransmisión/gravación libre y de codigo ubierto
GenericName[ar_SA]=برامج البث / التسجيل

A few years back I successfully used a dinosaurian version of OBS (25.0.8, LINUX) running on Ubuntu 16.04 on an Intel NUC and ended up with it using a VFL2 input from a USB video capture device and writing the output to a series of MKV Matroska files. OBS performed nicely. Apart from that I have had very little experience with the OBS package. I was hoping to be able to make it run on an RPi5.

Searching for OBS and invalid desktop entry file I found this:

If you encounter the “invalid desktop entry file” error with OBS, it may be related to the configuration settings or the environment in which OBS is running. It is recommended to check the output path settings and ensure they point to a valid directory. Additionally, verifying the compatibility of OBS with your current operating system and environment can help resolve such issues. If the problem persists, checking the OBS community forums or support channels for the latest updates and solutions could be beneficial.

I will pursue the output path settings further in the next couple of days. I tried re-running the vulkaninfo program under a GUI because I suspect I may have done it from an SSH session last time, and this is what I saw.

root@RPi501:/home/brian# vulkaninfo | grep apiVersion
MESA: error: Use of VkSurfacePresentModeCompatibilityEXT without a VkSurfacePresentModeEXT set. This is an application bug.
MESA: error: Use of VkSurfacePresentModeCompatibilityEXT without a VkSurfacePresentModeEXT set. This is an application bug.
apiVersion = 1.2.289 (4202785)
apiVersion = 1.3.289 (4206881)
root@RPi501:/home/brian#

It seems to be saying there is some sort of MESA error. Does it mean anything to you?

Thanks,
Brian

4

OBS seems to be saying that Mesa isn’t prepared for the environment it finds itself in. I’m sorry I’m not familiar with MESA.
My next step would be to search the issues on the OBS github.

If you can’t find anything, then that would be the place to paste the error message. It may be they send you down the rabbit holes to the mesa devs but I’m out of my wheel house now.

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5

Thanks. Will update if I make any progress.

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