Auto restart: keep every hour as a replay

YouTube automatically saves a live stream as a replay only when it runs under 12 hours. Past that, YouTube's own help page says the stream may not be captured at all. A loop that runs for days keeps at most its first 12 hours, often nothing.

That matters because live watch time only counts toward the YouTube Partner Program's 4,000 public watch hours once it sits in a saved, public replay. Unlisted, deleted or unsaved streams don't count. Auto restart fixes this by ending the broadcast and starting a new one before it ever hits 12 hours.

Auto restart needs your connected YouTube account, because Loopcast creates each new broadcast for you. It isn't available on a stream using a pasted stream key (Manual key mode). If you haven't connected yet, see the Connect your YouTube account guide.

On your dashboard, the Auto restart for replays switch sits right under Go Live and Schedule. It's off by default. Turn it on before you go live or while you're already live; either way the video keeps playing, and the change applies at the next restart.

Restart every lets you choose 6, 8 or 11 hours. 11 hours (the default) means the fewest restarts while staying safely under YouTube's 12 hour limit. 6 or 8 hours gives you more, shorter replays, which some channels prefer.

Your first broadcast keeps your title exactly as you wrote it. Each new part after that is titled with the option you pick under Replay titles:

• ·Add date and time (default): e.g. Lofi Radio 24/7 • Oct 16, 2 PM, in your own time zone.
• ·Number them: Lofi Radio 24/7 #2, #3 and so on.
• ·Keep the same title: every part looks identical in your video list.

Only public replays count toward YouTube watch hours. Set Privacy to Public in Broadcast details; every new part uses the same privacy, description, category, tags and custom thumbnail as the one before it.

The video never stops on our side: the new broadcast uses the same YouTube stream key, so a restart looks like a switchover of about 10 seconds. A few things do change with each part:

• ·Live chat and the live viewer count start fresh.
• ·A link to one specific broadcast stops being live once its part ends; it now plays that part's replay.
• ·Your channel's /live link (youtube.com/@yourchannel/live) always points at the current part, so that's the one to share and pin.

Nothing goes dark. The old broadcast keeps running, a short note appears under the switch explaining what went wrong, and Loopcast tries again a little later.