What causes "Video generation timed out" in gitroomhq/postiz-app?

Retry the generation — transient provider backlog is the most common cause

gitroomhq/postiz-app · error · Error

Video generation timed out

Error message

Video generation timed out

What it means

After successfully creating a veo3 task, the code polls the record-info endpoint every 10 seconds up to 180 times (~30 minutes). If the task never reaches a terminal state within that window, it throws 'Video generation timed out'.

Source

Thrown at libraries/nestjs-libraries/src/videos/veo3/veo3.ts:71

          prompt: customParams.prompt,
          imageUrls: customParams?.images?.map((p) => p.path) || [],
          model: 'veo3_fast',
          aspectRatio: output === 'horizontal' ? '16:9' : '9:16',
        }),
      })
    ).json();

    if (value.code !== 200 && value.code !== 201) {
      throw new Error(value?.msg || `Failed to generate video`);
    }

    const taskId = value.data.taskId;
    console.log('veo3 taskId', taskId);
    let attempts = 0;
    const maxAttempts = 180; // ~30 minutes at 10s interval
    while (true) {
      if (attempts++ >= maxAttempts) {
        throw new Error('Video generation timed out');
      }

      console.log('waiting for video to be ready');
      const data = await (
        await fetch(
          'https://api.kie.ai/api/v1/veo/record-info?taskId=' + taskId,
          {
            headers: {
              'Content-Type': 'application/json',
              Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.KIEAI_API_KEY}`,
            },
            signal: AbortSignal.timeout(30000),
          }
        )
      ).json();

      if (data.code !== 200) {
        throw new Error(data?.msg || `Failed to get video info`);

View on GitHub (pinned to 0f1647f749)

Solutions

Retry the generation — transient provider backlog is the most common cause
Reduce generation complexity (shorter prompt, standard aspect ratio) if it consistently times out
If reproducible, check the taskId directly against kie.ai's API/dashboard to see its real terminal state
Increase maxAttempts or make the whole step resumable via Temporal so it survives long waits instead of blocking a request

Example fix

// before
const maxAttempts = 180; // ~30 minutes

// after (run inside a Temporal activity with retry policy)
const maxAttempts = 360; // ~60 min, plus activity retry from workflow
// and configure: retry: { maximumAttempts: 3 } on the activity options

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Validate before calling

if (!prompt || prompt.length > MAX_PROMPT) throw new Error('Prompt too long — likely to time out');

Type guard

null

Try / catch

try { await veo3.process(prompt); } catch (e) { if ((e as Error).message === 'Video generation timed out') return retryWithBackoff(() => veo3.process(prompt), 2); throw e; }

Prevention

Run generations as resumable background jobs, not blocking calls
Keep prompts/resolution modest
Track provider latency and alert before the 30-min budget is hit

When it happens

Trigger: A video generation task stuck in generating state (successFlag 0) for 30+ minutes: long/high-res generations, provider queue backlog, or a task that silently died server-side.

Common situations: Peak-hour provider slowness; very long prompts or high resolution; the polling loop's 10s sleep plus API latency stretching past budget; tasks that fail without ever setting a failure flag.

Understand the failure class

Timeouts: ETIMEDOUT, deadlines, and hung requests — what actually expires when a request times out.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of gitroomhq/postiz-app@0f1647f749 (2026-08-27). Data as JSON: /api/errors/66f87aac3288a8da. Report an issue: GitHub.