Video is stuck
If your dub looks frozen, the most likely answer is that it's still working in the background. Dubs run through several processing stages in sequence, and each one takes time. This article helps you tell the difference between still working, waiting for you, and actually stuck — and what to do in each case.
First: refresh the page
Status updates don't always reach your browser in real time. A page refresh often shows the dub has already moved on to the next stage. Do this before assuming anything is wrong.
What actually happens during processing
Each dub moves through these stages in order. The status bar on the dub tile shows you which stage you're currently in.
Stage | What's happening |
|---|---|
Downloading | Your video is fetched (from URL or YouTube) or uploaded. |
Processing video | Audio is extracted, the video is re-encoded. |
Audio splitting | Voice is separated from music and sound effects. |
Transcribing | Speech is converted to text with timestamps. |
Assign Voices | (Only for Replace Voice mode with multiple speakers) Waits for you to assign a voice to each speaker. |
Voice cloning | The original speaker's voice is cloned. |
Speech syncing | Each translated line is synthesized, timed, and aligned. |
Rendering | The final video is assembled. |
As stages complete, the status bar advances. A dub that's been in the same stage for under 40 minutes is almost certainly still progressing normally.
"Assign Voices" is not stuck — it's waiting for you
If your dub shows a yellow warning badge saying Assign Voices, it isn't frozen. Dubly detected multiple speakers and needs you to pick which voice belongs to which speaker.
Open the dub, pick a voice for each speaker, and click Confirm. Processing resumes immediately.
"Assign Voices" doesn't appear when I expect it. This step only applies to Replace Voice mode. If you picked Original or Studio-Like, each speaker is cloned automatically.
The button isn't clickable. It's only active when the dub has finished transcription and moved into the Assign Voices state (yellow badge). While the dub is still processing, the button appears but is inactive.
"Input Error" — the source file has a problem
If your dub shows a red Input Error badge, the issue is with the uploaded video, not the pipeline. Common causes:
No audio track — the file has video but no sound
No video track — you uploaded an audio-only file
No speech detected — the audio has music, noise, or silence but no detectable speech
YouTube download failed — the source URL is private, geo-blocked, or deleted
You can't fix this from the UI. Delete the dub, prepare a clean source (see Do's & Don'ts for original videos), and upload a fresh copy.
When it's actually stuck
A dub is likely genuinely stuck if all of these are true:
It's been in the same stage for more than 40 minutes
The stage isn't Assign Voices (which waits for you)
It doesn't show an error badge
In that case it's a pipeline issue on our side. Regular accounts don't have a self-service restart — these need our support team. Contact hello@dubly.ai and we'll restart the pipeline from the appropriate stage. If the failure was on our end, we'll refund the credits.
What the pipeline retries automatically
If transcription finds no speech on the first pass, it automatically retries on the isolated voice track. This often rescues dubs where background music was masking the voice — you don't need to do anything.
Credits on failed dubs
Credits are charged when the dub is created, before processing starts. Failed dubs are not automatically refunded. If a dub fails for a reason outside your control, email hello@dubly.ai with the dub link — we review these manually and refund genuine pipeline failures.
Contacting support
When emailing hello@dubly.ai, please include:
The dub link (copy from the browser address bar)
The stage it's stuck in (from the status bar)
Roughly when you created the dub
A screenshot of the dub tile or error badge, if you see one
With that information we can check the pipeline logs directly and either nudge it back on track or issue a refund.