A recording failed
What to look at when a recording stops, on your Mac or in the cloud, and how to get a good take.
A recording can stop because the app was not ready, a screen changed, or the recording was refused before it started. Here is where to look and what to do.
On your Mac
When a take stops, the recorder prints the clip and the reason, and saves a picture of the screen at that moment as films/<film>/shots/_fail_<clip>.png. Open the picture: it usually shows the problem.
Common causes:
- The app is not running, or not at the address the film records from. Start it and record again.
- The app signed you out. Sign in once for recording with
showreel signin, adding--envfor the environment you record on. See Apps that sign in. - A screen changed, so a button or field the film uses has moved or been renamed. Check the film's freshness to see which lines changed.
- "the take has no marks for …; record it again": the take stopped before those lines. Fix the cause above, then record again.
See Fix a failed take. In Claude Code, the showreel-repair skill judges the frames against each line's expected picture, fixes what broke and records again only that.
A film with problems
Sometimes the film is made but verify reports problems, such as red frames, loudness off target, a long silence, or real data that got past the masking. The film is marked Problems in the local app, or check in the web app. Look at the verify report and the contact sheet, fix, and build again. See Check a film.
In the cloud
A failed recording shows its reason in red on its page in the web app, and the Log tab shows everything the recorder did.
| Reason | What to do |
|---|---|
timed out after 30 minutes | A cloud recording can run for 30 minutes. Shorten the film, or record it on your Mac. |
the recorder stopped without finishing | Read the Log tab, fix, and press Run again. |
could not start the recorder | Try again. If it keeps happening, contact Showreel Studio. |
cannot be recorded in the cloud: … not reachable from the internet | Local and private addresses cannot be recorded in the cloud. Record on your Mac. See What cloud recording refuses. |
your organisation already has 2 recordings running | Wait for one to finish. |
A recording whose verify finds problems still comes back, marked check.
Run again records a finished recording again from the same files. It is not available for a recording that used your app's sign-in or your own cloud token from your Mac; record those again from your Mac with showreel cloud record.