HasanAbi has become one of the most popular names on Twitch, largely thanks to his political coverage, but on January 6 he grew increasingly frustrated as his stream crashed twice, with over 200,000 viewers at one point.
Hasan’s stream became the biggest on Twitch in November 2020 when the United States presidential election was ongoing, regularly bringing in tens if not hundreds of thousands of viewers.
Now, with the violence and protesting witnessed at Capitol Hill on January 6, Hasan booted up the stream and, of course, the viewers came pouring in to listen to what he had to say, reacting live to the events that were unfolding.
Hasan peaked at over 223,000 viewers, but saw his numbers dwindling as his stream crashed not once, but twice — and he’s suspicious of how it happened.
At first, his OBS crashed, meaning that he had to set it back up and kick the stream up again, properly, so he could carry on with his programming.
That’s not all, though: not long after, his stream key was randomly changed mid-stream, causing him to go offline and have to get going once more.
obs tanked w 145k people watching. then this happened. pic.twitter.com/TOmOuewQfD
— hasanabi (@hasanthehun) January 7, 2021
It’s unclear how exactly the stream key could be changed without he himself changing it. One viewer did say they suspect hackers could be behind it, but Hasan questioned why a hacker’s first instinct would be to change the stream key.
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Instead, he says, it would have to be someone with access to the back end of his stream — even positing that it could have been a member of staff at Twitch.
“Changing my stream key is something that someone who does not have direct access to my account would be able to do if they were an admin over at Twitch,” he said. “But if they had direct access to my account, they can literally do whatever the f**k they want.”
Shortly after his stream key was changed for a second time and he had to reboot the stream, Hasan was clearly incensed at what was happening, saying that “someone over at Twitch keeps changing my stream key.”
Adding that it’s “100% a Twitch problem,” Hasan was unable to get to the bottom of his technical issues but believes the platform is having some kind of problem, if not someone working there actively doing it to him, in which case he says he hopes whoever is doing it is found.
It’s not yet clear what the problem with the stream was, but to be pulling in over 200,000 viewers and constantly see your broadcast dropping out has got to be one of the most frustrating experiences a streamer can face.