FFmpeg does not save a playlist’s next-item position as durable state when it crashes. To resume at the next video, keep the playlist progress outside FFmpeg in a wrapper or supervisor: launch a video, detect when FFmpeg exits, update a checkpoint, and restart the supervisor after an unexpected failure. You must also choose what a crash in the middle of a video means: replay that video or skip it.
Choose what “resume from the next video” means
A process crash can happen after only part of the current video has been sent. There is no universally correct way to handle that: retrying the current item can replay content, while advancing past it can omit content that viewers have not seen. Decide which outcome is less harmful for your stream before configuring recovery.
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- Retry the current item: keep its index until FFmpeg finishes successfully. After a crash, start that item again. This avoids skipping it, but may replay part of it.
- Skip the current item after a crash: persist the next index before launching FFmpeg. If the process dies, restart at the next item. This can skip the unfinished remainder—or the whole item if the process dies before sending it.
For most playlists where missing an item is worse than replaying a portion, advance only after a successful completion. A finite playlist should also have an explicit end policy: stop when all items finish, or wrap around to the first item. Do not let an automatic restart turn a completed playlist into an unintended loop.
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Keep playlist progress outside FFmpeg
Use a wrapper process as the source of truth. It should read an ordered playlist, launch FFmpeg for the selected item, wait for its exit status, and update a durable checkpoint according to your chosen replay-or-skip policy. Write checkpoint changes atomically—write a temporary file and replace the old checkpoint—so a machine restart or abrupt termination does not leave a partially written index.
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- Create and verify the ordered playlist. Keep the item order in a plain text file or another durable store. Use stable file paths, and make sure the account running the wrapper can read every video.
- Load the saved item identifier at startup. An integer index is simple for a fixed playlist; a stable filename or item ID is safer if you may reorder the list. If the saved item no longer exists, log the problem and stop for operator review rather than silently selecting an arbitrary video.
- Launch one FFmpeg process for the selected item. Pass the video and YouTube output settings to FFmpeg. Obtain the server URL from YouTube Live and keep the stream key out of command logs, shared scripts, and screenshots.
- Wait for FFmpeg to exit and inspect why. On success, write the next item’s checkpoint. On an unexpected failure, follow the policy you selected and retry after a delay. Do not treat an intentional operator stop as a crash.
- Record useful logs and stop cleanly. Log the item identifier, start time, exit status, and retry decision, but not the stream key. Provide a deliberate stop path and handle shutdown signals so the supervisor does not immediately restart a process an operator meant to stop.
This separation is important: FFmpeg handles media input and output; the wrapper handles durable playlist state and restart decisions. Restarting FFmpeg alone does not tell it which playlist item had been completed.
Concat demuxer or one FFmpeg process per video?
| Method | Best fit | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Concat demuxer | A single FFmpeg process should read a compatible ordered list continuously. | It needs separate durable progress if a restart must begin at a particular item. Inputs must have matching streams, codecs, and time bases; inaccurate duration metadata can cause timestamp artifacts. FFmpeg Formats Documentation |
| One process per video | A wrapper needs a clear completion boundary for checkpointing and advancing the playlist. | It involves more process launches and may create a gap while one process exits and the next starts. Whether that gap matters depends on reconnection behavior and the stream setup; it is an implementation trade-off, not a guarantee of uninterrupted viewing. |
| Segment muxer and segment list | Splitting one source into timed output segments. | Segment starts are tied to reference-stream keyframes, and segment bookkeeping is not a generic saved checkpoint for a playlist of source videos. FFmpeg Formats Documentation |
The concat demuxer reads listed files and directives one after another as though their packets had been muxed together. Use it only when the inputs meet its compatibility requirements; a playlist that mixes formats or has unreliable duration information may need preparation or a different approach. FFmpeg’s FAQ describes the concat demuxer as an option when avoiding a re-encode and the format does not support file-level concatenation: FFmpeg FAQ.
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For straightforward per-video checkpointing, separate FFmpeg invocations make it easier to identify which item completed. That recommendation is a wrapper design choice, not a built-in FFmpeg resume feature. The concat demuxer is more convenient when one process can consume the list and exact restart position is not required.
Make retries controlled, not endless
A supervisor should distinguish normal completion, an operator stop, and an error. Add a short delay before retrying and increase it after repeated failures, then alert or stop after a defined limit. This prevents an invalid input, expired stream setup, or other persistent fault from producing a rapid restart loop. Preserve logs across process restarts so the cause remains diagnosable.
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FFmpeg’s -xerror option tells FFmpeg to stop and exit on error. Use it only if that behavior suits the job, and check the installed version’s documentation: FFmpeg is continuously developed, and command-line options apply to the next input or output, so option placement matters. See the FFmpeg documentation.
Do not use the segment muxer as a substitute for the playlist checkpoint. Its segment boundaries are associated with reference-stream keyframes; it does not, by itself, tell a wrapper which source video should run next after a crash.
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What YouTube reconnects do—and do not—guarantee
YouTube’s encoder instructions tell creators to enter the YouTube Live server URL and stream key in their encoder. If the encoder stops sending content, the stream ends; YouTube’s help page says streams under 12 hours are automatically archived. These details do not establish that a reconnect after an FFmpeg crash will continue the identical uninterrupted live event or preserve one continuous viewer session. A wrapper can relaunch media, but it cannot promise how YouTube will present that reconnection.
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Troubleshoot common recovery failures
- The same video starts over after every restart: the checkpoint is not being saved durably, or the supervisor always initializes to the first item. Persist the selected item outside FFmpeg and verify that startup reads it.
- A video is skipped after a crash: the checkpoint may be advanced before launch or before successful completion. Move advancement to the completion path if replaying part of a video is preferable to omission.
- The playlist stops at a failed item: inspect the FFmpeg exit status and logs, verify that the file exists and is readable, and decide whether that error should trigger a retry, an operator alert, or a deliberate skip.
- The process restarts repeatedly with no useful progress: add a delay or backoff, log the failure and selected item, and stop after a defined number of attempts so an unresolved fault does not become a rapid restart loop.
- Concat output has timestamp artifacts or fails on mixed files: check that inputs have matching streams, codecs, and time bases, and verify duration information, especially for truncated files. Use per-item processing or prepare compatible inputs if the list does not meet concat requirements.
- The encoder reconnect does not look like the same live event: YouTube does not document a guarantee that an encoder reconnect preserves one uninterrupted event. Treat media recovery and YouTube event continuity as separate concerns.
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