Problem
VPN software reroutes ingest traffic through a slower path and increases packet loss.
Solution
Root Cause / Diagnostic:
Background consumer or corporate VPN clients intercept network adapter sockets and encapsulate outgoing packets into encrypted tunnels. Routing high-bitrate video streams through intermediate VPN relay nodes introduces substantial geographic detours, protocol encapsulation overhead, and server throttling, resulting in catastrophic packet loss, increased RTT, and severe encoder frame drops.
Actionable Fix:
1. Completely terminate, disable, or uninstall all VPN software (NordVPN, ExpressVPN, corporate OpenVPN clients) on dedicated broadcast encoding machines.
2. If corporate VPN access is mandatory for internal tools, configure split-tunneling to explicitly route streaming software (OBS/vMix) and RTMP/SRT destination IPs outside the VPN tunnel.
3. Perform a speed and latency route trace (`traceroute [link removed]`) to ensure packets travel directly through your primary ISP peering exchange without encapsulation hops.
Pro Tip:
Bind OBS Studio's network interface directly to the physical NIC IP address (Settings > Advanced > Network > Bind to IP) to prevent virtual network adapters from hijacking stream traffic.
Background consumer or corporate VPN clients intercept network adapter sockets and encapsulate outgoing packets into encrypted tunnels. Routing high-bitrate video streams through intermediate VPN relay nodes introduces substantial geographic detours, protocol encapsulation overhead, and server throttling, resulting in catastrophic packet loss, increased RTT, and severe encoder frame drops.
Actionable Fix:
1. Completely terminate, disable, or uninstall all VPN software (NordVPN, ExpressVPN, corporate OpenVPN clients) on dedicated broadcast encoding machines.
2. If corporate VPN access is mandatory for internal tools, configure split-tunneling to explicitly route streaming software (OBS/vMix) and RTMP/SRT destination IPs outside the VPN tunnel.
3. Perform a speed and latency route trace (`traceroute [link removed]`) to ensure packets travel directly through your primary ISP peering exchange without encapsulation hops.
Pro Tip:
Bind OBS Studio's network interface directly to the physical NIC IP address (Settings > Advanced > Network > Bind to IP) to prevent virtual network adapters from hijacking stream traffic.