ghost-chat VS desktop

That's not right. Twitch chat window is already in OBS without StreamElements downloaded if you log onto Twitch in OBS. For reading it but not showing to viewers it's better to use Ghost Chat anyway. It creates a transparent overlay over the game: https://github.com/Enubia/ghost-chat

Ghost Chat overlay if you don't want to look at a second screen. Use Window Capture or Game Capture so that it's not visible in OBS, it will be visible if you use display capture.

If you want to see chat over the game as you play without it being sent to stream, use game capture or window capture with OBS on your game, and use Ghost Chat.

Ghost-Chat

Ghost Chat (Free) Sheep Chat (Free + Paid Options)

https://github.com/Enubia/ghost-chat or https://sheep.chat/en/

The Twitch overlay you see on streams is a browser source. You can use services like StreamElements or Pixelchat to set up a chat widget and then add it as a browser source in OBS. It will only be visible in OBS. If you want to have chat on screen as you game, you can use Ghost Chat (free) or SheepChat (free, has a paid version) as a screen overlay. They won't show up in stream as long as you use Game Capture or Window Capture.

Plenty of people use a single monitor - just don't use display capture. As long as you use game capture or window capture for the game, the game will still display in OBS even if you tab out. You can also use hotkeys to switch to a BRB scene while switching games, and have no game or display captures on that scene. You can use a phone to monitor chat, or an over-the-game overlay like Ghost Chat.

Ghost Chat as a game overlay - https://github.com/Enubia/ghost-chat/releases

When visiting streamlabs.com, I am almost always sent through the setup process despite the fact that I've been through it multiple times. I have the desktop app and have even streamed unlisted videos as tests (everything seems fine from the app) but when I go on the website it won't acknowledge my yt account. The same is also true for my other settings like tipping; my tip URL still links to the tip page, yet the website doesn't think I've started setting any of that up. Please help, thank you!

nono i meant when i test out the widgets on streamlabs.com or whatever it pops up like it should on OBS or streamlabs the app for that matter, but the alerts don't pop up exclusively when I stream

I use a special font I purchased which is Sidefont. As I wrote it, the base64 URL I got from fontsquirrel works perfectly with streamlabs.com and streamelements alerts boxes. How can I create a shorter URL like you mentioned?

So I've used Streamlabs for a while now and have always ran into random issues with this but it has never really bugged me like it has recently. Ever since a few months ago when I set up my sponsor banner widget, it works perfectly for a week or two and then I go to stream and it just shows a generic "streamlabs" logo and text where my sponsors should be rotating. Upon checking the streamlabs.com dashboard where my widget's info should be saved, it shows a blank page and none of my settings are there so I am forced to start from scratch and completely re-add all of my sponsor images and re-do all of the associated settings. This is very frustrating as I have to now check these settings before every stream to make sure my alerts and sponsor bar are working properly. Please look into this and if anyone can offer a solution or reason as to why my settings are constantly being reset to default, please let me know. It also resets my settings for my alerts randomly as well.

Website: https://streamlabs.com/

I'm not sure what you break by chat dock, but I can share my solution. I use StreamLabs to display chat and follow animations. They provide a URL that you add to a Browser source in OBS.

If you're looking to record a long segment, like a YouTube video length, get either OBS or Streamlabs OBS. These allow you to add webcam overlays, etc etc. and for the regular OBS I'd recommend looking up a tutorial on how to set up a basic scene to record your screen, but it's straight forward enough. Streamlabs OBS comes with more overlays for streaming, if you're into that, and OBS is a bit more basic, but can be customised using coding languages and plugins I believe.

That setup should work for any software that can read from the 4K60 Pro. (OBS Studio and Streamlabs Desktop are both known to work.)

Whenever I launch the widget url in streamlabs.com it works just fine in that window but it doesn't show up at all in my desktop SLOBS