Sometimes, you may notice your stream is freezing or pausing while you watch it. The video may stop playing for one or more seconds, and a spinning loading circle may even appear in the center of the video until it begins to play again. This is called "buffering."

A "buffer" is a temporary storage location on your encoding device that is populated when your Internet connection cannot keep up with the amount of data your encoder has been configured to send (see What is Bitrate? for more). For example, if you have your broadcast bitrate set to 2.5Mb/s and your upload Internet speed is 2.0Mb/s, the additional 500kb/s required for your broadcast will load into your buffer until your Internet speed exceeds 2.5Mb/s.

This causes "stops" in your broadcast for your viewers while the buffer is populated, leading to a poor viewing experience. Since buffering is caused by your bitrate being too high for your available upload speed, it can be fixed by either lowering your bitrate or increasing your available upload speed. Ideally, the bitrate configured in your encoder should not exceed 50% of your available upload speed, to provide some protection against natural fluctuations in connection bandwidth. Additionally, wired internet connections are more stable than wireless connections as a general rule. While the flexibility of wireless connections can be a huge benefit, it is prudent to expect bitrate fluctuations (and a heightened chance of issues with your stream) whenever wireless connections are involved.