My upload or processing failed

If an upload stops or a video shows Failed, the message on the screen usually says why. This article lists the common messages, what they mean and what to do. A failed video never costs you hours.

Your hours are safe

If a video fails while processing, every hour it held goes back to your balance automatically. If it's refused when the upload finishes, for example because it has no audio track, nothing is charged at all. So trying again only uses hours once.

There's no retry button on a failed project. To try again, upload the file again, or paste the link again for a YouTube import.

Messages before or during the upload

"This file type isn't supported. Try MP4, MOV, WebM, MP3 or M4A." Your browser couldn't open the file to read its length. Convert it to one of those formats and try again.

"Couldn't read the length of this file." The browser opened the file but couldn't tell how long it is. Re-export or convert the file, then upload it again.

"This video needs 1.5 h and you have 0.8 h left." You don't have enough hours for the video. See Hours and usage for your options.

"invalid_request" The upload was refused before it started. Check that the file is under 20 GB, under 12 hours long and is a video or audio file.

"Network error while uploading" or "Upload failed" The connection dropped while a part of the file was being sent. Uploads don't resume, so choose the same file again. No hours were held.

"Too many requests. Try again in a little while." Your workspace started a lot of uploads in a short time. Wait a bit and try again.

"Free accounts on this network have used this month's free uploads." Free uploads are limited per network each month. Upgrade on the Billing page, or try again next month.

Messages about the sound

Reeltopus clips by what is said, so it needs speech it can hear.

"This video has no audio track, so there is nothing to transcribe." The file has no sound at all. Check that you exported the version with audio.

"We couldn't read this video's audio. Export it with AAC audio and upload it again." The sound is in a format we can't decode. Re-export the video with AAC audio. Most video editors offer this as a standard export setting.

"We couldn't hear any speech in this video." The audio track is there but silent. Check the file plays with sound on your computer.

Messages during processing

"Processing failed. Your hours were refunded automatically." Something went wrong on our side and retries didn't fix it. Upload the file again. If it fails a second time, contact us (see below).

"Processing could not start. Your hours were not charged." The video couldn't be queued. Wait a few minutes and upload it again.

YouTube imports

Import failures have their own messages, like "This video is private" or "YouTube didn't let us download this video right now." Import from YouTube lists them. When in doubt, download the video and upload the file instead.

Other things that look like failures

• The bar sits still. Some steps can't be counted, so the percentage only moves when the step ends. See How processing works.
• No clips, just a transcript. The video processed, but no clips were found. Check that the transcript looks right. A video with very little speech may have nothing to clip. The hours were spent on processing, since it didn't fail.
• Clips are centered instead of following the speaker. Framing is best effort. If it doesn't finish, clips keep a centered crop.

When to contact support

Email support@reeltopus.com if:

• The same file fails twice with "Processing failed".
• A video has been stuck on Queued or Processing for much longer than you'd expect.
• Your hours didn't come back after a failure.

Tell us the project's name, what the screen says and roughly when you uploaded. We reply within one business day (Monday to Friday). You can also press the Help button in the app to ask the help assistant first.