How to fix "Failed to connect to server" on OBS on Linux

Endrit Qerreti

Endrit Qerreti

OBS is an open source streaming software that you can use to stream online. It's one of the most popular software when it comes to streaming.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to fix the error "failed to connect to server" on OBS. This is a bug that happens on OBS when it fails to use the correct network device, even after selecting the correct one.  

Bugs are annoying, and just like any software OBS has bugs too, but it is a bit more than annoying when you setup everything, and you are ready to go "LIVE" and OBS doesn't work. If you've ever tried streaming, you know what I'm talking about. However, there is a workaround for this issue, and it can be solved easily, simply follow the steps below.

Step 1 -  Launch OBS

If OBS is running on your system, make sure to close it and terminate all obs processes before you launch OBS again.

You can launch it via applications menu or via terminal

obs
💡
Note: If you launch OBS via terminal make sure to not close the terminal as it would kill OBS too. 

Step 2 - Go to Settings

Once you launch OBS, you need to go to Settings. Simply click the settings button as shown in the image below

Step 3 -  Go to Advanced

Once you are in the settings window, go to Advanced section by clicking the advanced button at the sidebar

Step 4 - Set Bind to IP device

The setting that you need to look for is called "Bind to IP", this is the setting that lets you select the network device that you want to use when streaming. Click on the drop down box, and select the network device that your computer is using.

If you use multiple network devices, such as : cable, wifi, or vpn, then you will have all of these networks listed on the Bind to IP drop down box. You can use the command below to identify which network device you have currently in use.

💡
If you don't know which network device is your main device in use, you can use the command below to find out.
ip addr | awk '/state UP/ {print $2}'

And it should output the network device in use.

Step 5 - Save changes

After setting the correct network device on Bind to IP option, click apply to save changes and then the OK button. Now, you can test and see if the issue is fixed, if you get the same error even after setting the right network device, restart OBS and see if the Bind to IP option is what you set.

Step 6 - Stream

You should be able to stream now, you can do a test stream or a real stream to see if everything works as it should.

How to stream to multiple sites at the same time?

If you want to stream to multiple sites at the same time, you can do that with restream and OBS. Also, make sure to join on restream via our link and get $10 free credit.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you learned how to fix the error "Failed to connect to server" on OBS. I hope this tutorial helped you to fix this issue. If the problem continues, make sure to disconnect additional network devices and keep only one active, then set that device on OBS on bind to IP.