After macOS update, Brave audio is not captured by OBS

[hayakenkun]

Mac user here using Brave 1.87.190. After updating my OS to Sonoma 14.8.4, OBS is failing to capture the audio of my Brave browser.

• Audio was captured just fine prior to the update (previous version was Sonoma 14.8.1).

• When using macOS Screen Capture > Display Capture, the audio is captured (i.e. when the entire system audio is captured), but when using …>Application Capture or …>Window Capture, the audio is not captured (i.e. when the capture is specific to Brave)

• When using other browsers (e.g. Firefox), the audio is captured, so it is specifically an issue with the interaction between Brave, OBS and Sonoma 14.8.4.

• The audio itself is working fine, meaning I can hear the audio through my audio output device. The issue is specifically that the audio is not captured by Application Capture or Window Capture on OBS.

I know this is kind of a niche issue but any pointers are greatly appreciated.

[Mattches]

Just downloaded and tested OBS on my macOS device and everything seems to be working as intended:

I used the macOS Screen capture → Application capture → Brave browser and then macOS audio capture options in OBS to get this.

Notably I am using macOS Tahoe 26.2 which may have something to do with it. Can you try testing this in another Chromium based browser (Chrome, Edge, Opera, etc) and see if audio is captured as expected when using those?

[hayakenkun]

@Mattches

macOS audio capture options in OBS

Thanks for your reply, I really appreciate that you are taking the time to address this issue. I had two questions just to clarify:

(1) What do you mean specifically by “macOS audio capture options in OBS”? Do you mean that you are using the “macOS Audio Capture” source in addition to the “macOS Screen Capture” source to capture audio?

(2) The screen recording you kindly provided doesn’t show whether the audio is captured on OBS. Could you perhaps capture the OBS interface while playing the video to confirm that the audio is indeed captured by OBS?

[Mattches]

@hayakenkun

(1) What do you mean specifically by “macOS audio capture options in OBS”? Do you mean that you are using the “macOS Audio Capture” source in addition to the “macOS Screen Capture” source to capture audio?

Yes. To be clear I have had exactly 0 experience using OBS so I was kind of just setting up with features that logically made sense to me. Was your setup different than described above?

Yes I can do that but I’m not sure what motivation I would have to lie about it

[hayakenkun]

Thanks for your reply. I realised that I wasn’t clear enough with my question, so let me try again. When an audio source is added to a scene on OBS, a bar appears in the audio mixer dock which indicates whether the audio input is active. When an active audio source is captured, the bar lights up according to the input audio level. Please see the screenshots below which compares Firefox (where the audio is captured properly) and Brave (where audio is not captured).

Just to make sure we’re on the same page (I know you’re not lying – I’m just trying to avoid miscommunication), could you kindly check and confirm that your Brave audio is being captured in OBS in the sense described above? A screenshot of OBS which includes the audio mixer dock would be most helpful. Thanks in advance!

[MasterLink]

I’ve been pondering if I have knowledge here that might help. I used to work for Apple but not since Mac OS X Mavericks, so things have changed under the hood considerably.

It works if the entire desktop audio is captured, but not if application specific.

I do see you are using OBS’s Window Capture for audio capturing. On Windows this is marked as “BETA”, not sure about the Mac OS variant of OBS, but I can confirm on Windows the “Window Capture” and BETA audio capturing under that, is capturing Brave. (But you’re on Mac, so let’s try something).

I’m going on the assumption Mac OS still uses Core Audio, and um…gonna be honest I’m guessing here, but try this. Do not enable audio capturing under Window capture, so leave this actually unchecked:

Instead, add a dedicated source for simply capturing application audio separately such as this one (if it’s on OBS for Mac that is):

From there you can tell it which browser and window (it won’t follow the window capture, so you have to tell this source the same information you told Window Capture).

Does that work? If not, it’s the only thing different I see you doing that @Mattches seems to have done slightly different, as he used this:

(Based on the icon in their OBS capture that is, which is essentially screen capture’s method of capturing audio, the whole system, not just Brave, which you said did work, as application audio capture source has a different looking icon.)

Again just a guess. But if mattches did test “Audio Output Capture” and not “Application Audio Capture” (again I’m going on the icon I see being a generic speaker, not a speaker in a window), do you (mattches) mind re-testing that?

I think there may be a misunderstanding on the OBS side.

Audio Output Capture, simply captures the audio stream going to the DAC itself (overly simplified, but yea), whereas “Application Window Capture” captures the audio stream before it reaches Core Audio (or on Windows, WASAPI’s “mixer”).

However, since OBS does say on my side it’s “BETA”, it might be an OBS issue (since it’s a bit of a “hack” to capture audio before it’s mixed by the sound mixer of the OS itself).

[Mattches]

On macOS both of those options are under the Depreciated menu when adding a source:

Which is why I opted to use the sources shown in the screen capture above. @hayakenkun can you test using the same sources I used and confirm whether or not audio is captured?

[MasterLink]

@Mattches

On macOS both of those options are under the Depreciated menu when adding a source:

Well shoot, Windows OBS has a different list here.

(Ironically what you have deprecated, I don’t, but what I have deprecated, you don’t.)

Nevermind, I can’t go by the icons then since it appears OBS’s icons aren’t actually consistent across platforms (or even what’s deprecated and not, which is a bit amusing).

Was worth a shot, thought I caught something.

[hayakenkun]

Thanks a million @Mattches @MasterLink for the replies.

I’ve tested multiple times the method of adding the “macOS Audio Capture" and then selecting “Application Capture > Brave Browser” but unfortunately this always failed to capture the audio. When I was building the screenshot I forgot to add this step, so it is not reflected in the specific screenshots I shared, but the result is that the “macOS Audio Capture” is not capturing the audio of Brave (i.e. the audio bars do not light up when the audio is active on Brave).

Like I said in the original post, this could be an issue specific to the interaction between Sonoma 14.8.4. and Brave 1.87.190, in which case I might be able to fix it if I update to the latest version of Tahoe, but I’ve heard horror stories of all kinds of other bugs cropping up with a major OS update so I’m trying to hold out with Sonoma until a time when I can afford to take that risk and, when things go sideways, spend some time debugging stuff.

[MasterLink]

If you don’t mind, I wonder if this is Brave, or Chromium. With each Brave update, the Chromium backend is also updated. Current Brave uses Chromium 145.0.7632.109.

While pre-builds of pure Chromium on Mac OS are hard to comeby, Ungoogled Chromium does have a Mac OS build with a close enough Chromium version: 145.0.7632.45-1.1

If you don’t mind trying that, does it have no audio like Brave? If so, as counterproductive as it sounds, you might try following a bug report to OBS themselves. Not so much to pass the buck, but let them say “why” it isn’t working since we aren’t really sure how OBS is capturing the application audio before the OS mixes it (especially on Mac OS, as it does work on Windows, so it’s not being captured via the same method). IF they can at least say why, that could help us to push upstream to Chromium.

As for why I don’t entirely recommend you reach out to Chromium directly…they aren’t quite easy to work with in my experience if you don’t know what the fault is, but getting that from OBS to bring here, Brave can have push to get the fix upstream since Brave is listed as a contributor to the Chromium project.

I absolutely would LOVE to see this feature fixed for you. I know, it’s “hacky” to capture audio this way, but honestly I see it as beneficial for streamers (how many times on a stream have we heard someone’s USB connect/disconnect sound or Discord notifications? This is that fix, lol)

[Mattches]

I would also be interested to see if this reproduces in other Chromium-based browsers. Would at minimum point us in the right direction.

@hayakenkun

might be able to fix it if I update to the latest version of Tahoe, but I’ve heard horror stories of all kinds of other bugs cropping up with a major OS update so I’m trying to hold out with Sonoma until a time when I can afford to take that risk and, when things go sideways, spend some time debugging stuff.

FWIW I felt the same way but updating to Tahoe on my Macbook was totally smooth and I didn’t have any bugs or conflicts with any existing apps. Obviously everyone’s setup/installed software is different so I can’t guarantee it will be the same for you, but figure I’d share my experience here anyway.

[hayakenkun]

Thanks for the further replies @Mattches @MasterLink. I’ve run the same test with Ecosia (a Chromium-based browser) and the audio was not captured. Good to know.

Edit: I spoke too soon. I also tested with DuckDuckGo, and audio was captured through both the “macOS Screen Capture > Window Capture” source and “macOS Audio Capture > Audio Capture” source. Now I’m not sure what’s going on.

[MasterLink]

@hayakenkun

I also tested with DuckDuckGo

Mac OS DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser is based on Webkit, not Blink (Chromium). So it is more like Safari. (On Android it uses WebView, basically it’s based on whatever browser is native to your OS, it’s weird).

So it seems to be a weird Chromium issue with the way it uses audio and how OBS wants to capture it.

[Mattches]

Came here to say the same thing (DDG using WebKit for macOS). Can’t find an exact issue for this in Chromium issues – may be related to this one but hard to say:

Chromium

I’ve asked a couple of our devs to see if they can reach out to their Chromium team contacts and get more info on this.

[hayakenkun]

Many thanks for this! I initially thought the issue was caused by my updating macOS Sonoma to 14.8.4, but now that I think again, it seems more likely that Brave’s updating to Chromium 145.0.7632.109 was the actual cause.

I hear you on updating to Tahoe, but after seeing how Tahoe looks, I still have a few reservations. I prefer Sonoma’s UI and I’m also not the biggest fan of Apple pushing all these new “intelligence” features.

I guess one interim solution is to revert to Brave 1.87.188 and pause automatic updates until a proper solution is found.

[hayakenkun]

@Mattches Any word from the Brave devs and/or the Chromium team?

[Mattches]

Just that this is likely going to have to wait for an upstream fix from the Chromium folks. Wish I had more/better news to give but that’s all I have at this time.