TroubleshootUpdated 2026-04-25·2 min read

Render Failed or Stuck

What to check when a video stays in 'rendering' for more than 5 minutes, or fails outright.

If a video is stuck rendering for more than five minutes or shows a red error state, the cause is one of three things: browser tab closed mid-render, hardware acceleration disabled, or a fallback to the server FFmpeg worker that has not yet returned.

Step 1 — Check Edge SLA

Edge render targets a p95 of 25 seconds. Anything past 2-3 minutes is abnormal.

  • Phase 1 — Strategy + Scripttarget ≤ 45s p95

    DOM analysis, marketing strategy, script + evaluator.

  • Phase 2 — Voice + Subtitles + Blueprinttarget ≤ 20s p95

    ElevenLabs VO, Whisper subtitles, render blueprint.

  • Edge — Client Rendertarget ≤ 25s p95

    WebCodecs client-side render in browser.

Total target: ≤ 90s p95.

If your browser closed mid-render

Edge render runs in your browser. Closing the tab cancels the render. Hit Retry on the video card — the pipeline restarts from the blueprint, no need to regenerate the script.

If hardware acceleration is off

WebCodecs needs hardware acceleration. To verify:

  1. Open chrome://gpu
  2. Look for Video Decode: Hardware accelerated
  3. If disabled, enable it in chrome://settings/system → "Use graphics acceleration"

After enabling, retry the render.

If the server fallback is hung

Older browsers without WebCodecs fall back to the Cloud Run FFmpeg worker. It is slower but always works. If the worker stalls past 5 minutes, contact support with the video ID.

Permanent failure

If retry fails twice, the source content is likely unrenderable (missing assets, corrupt voiceover). Delete the video and start a new one.

Still need help? Contact us.
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