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Troubleshooting

When something looks broken, it almost never is. Here is every common hiccup, what actually happened, and the gentle fix.

Tip: The single most useful command in this whole page is doctor. It re-checks your entire setup and renders two free local test clips. When in doubt, run it first.

"command not found" after installing (Mac)

Symptom: You just ran the installer, you type pod, and Terminal replies command not found.

Cause: The Terminal window you already had open doesn't know about the new program yet, because it made its list of commands when it opened, before pod existed.

Fix: Close the Terminal window completely, open a fresh one (press Cmd-Space, type Terminal, press Enter), and type pod again. That's the whole fix. More install detail lives on the Mac install page.

Your computer warns about an "unidentified developer"

Symptom: macOS says the app is from an unidentified developer, or Windows SmartScreen shows a blue warning screen.

Cause: Pod hasn't bought a code-signing certificate, and a file your browser downloaded is stamped as having come from the internet. Together those produce the warning. It's a reputation notice about a program your computer hasn't seen before. Unsigned is not the same as unsafe, and nothing has been found wrong with the file.

Fix:

You only have to do this once. The Mac one-line installer avoids the warning altogether, because a file fetched by the installer rather than by a browser never gets that internet stamp. See the Windows install page or the Mac install page for the full walkthrough.

Windows Defender says the file "contains a virus"

Symptom: Defender blocks pod.exe and names Trojan:Win32/Wacatac.H!ml.

Cause: The !ml means a machine-learning guess about how the program is packaged, not a match against a real virus. The single-file build has to unpack itself into a temporary folder before it can run, and that shape is what the guess fires on. Nothing was found in pod's code, and the file's checksum matches pod's signed release manifest.

Fix: Use the folder (zip) download, which exists for exactly this reason: it never unpacks itself, so there is nothing for the heuristic to react to. Don't bother adding an antivirus exclusion. Tell us instead, and we'll get you the folder version directly.

Titles or visuals look wrong

Symptom: Title cards render oddly, or something visual on your machine looks off.

Cause: Usually a piece of pod's local toolchain (the video engine or the graphics renderer it downloaded on first run) needs a health check.

Fix: Run the studio's own physician.

❯ doctor
  (checks the whole setup, self-heals the toolchain,
   and renders two free local test clips to prove it)

Those test clips cost nothing and never touch the internet: they exist purely to show you everything works.

A generation timed out

Symptom: A clip was rendering, the wait ran long, and it seemed to give up.

Cause: The cloud render sometimes takes longer than the studio waits. The work isn't gone. It finishes on the generation side.

Fix: Nothing dramatic. Type resume and pod collects the paid result automatically. Work you've already paid for is never lost and never paid for twice.

Pod stopped mid-film

Symptom: Mid-production, you pressed Ctrl-C, the laptop lid closed, the power went, or the app crashed.

Cause: Life. Pod expects it: progress is checkpointed continuously.

Fix:

❯ resume
picking up where we left off…
  (approved work is never redone; paid renders are collected, not re-bought)

You come back in full control, right where you left off: approved work kept, nothing paid for twice. (Hands-off autopilot resume is benched for now; see the modes page.)

Wrong voice, language, or accent

Symptom: Your telugu vertical came back with the wrong language, or a voice with an accent you didn't want.

Cause: The language wasn't stated in the brief, so pod had to guess.

Fix: Say the language up front ("90-second telugu teaser, vertical"), or use --language telugu on the command. Indian-accent voices are the house default cast, so you rarely need more than naming the language. For a finished film, localize <name> --language hindi makes a dubbed version, and vo <name> regenerates the voice-over.

"It keeps asking me questions"

Symptom: You want a film, not an interview.

Cause: By default pod is careful: it fills in the blanks (duration, language, look, shape) once, upfront, and waits for your OK before spending anything.

Fix: Two comfortable options:

And after a couple of productions pod remembers your habits anyway: the blanks start offering "your usual" (e.g. telugu · 9:16), so the questions get shorter on their own.

Credits ran out mid-shoot

Symptom: The shoot pauses because the generation balance hit zero.

Cause: Video is priced per second, and a longer film simply used up the balance.

Fix: Top up, then resume. The film continues from its exact checkpoint.

Check where you stand any time with credits (your balance) or estimate --runtime 120 (a cost preview). More on this at the money page.

"My film disappeared"

Symptom: You made something last week and can't find it.

Cause: It didn't go anywhere: everything pod makes lives in an episodes folder on your own computer. That is the only copy; pod's makers never store your footage or scripts, and cannot recover it for you.

Fix: Inside the studio, type episodes to see what's on the lot. Each film sits under episodes/<name>/, with the finished MP4 in its 07-final/ folder. At any gate, pressing o opens the files being reviewed.

Back it up: because the episodes folder is the only copy of your work, include it in whatever backup you already use. See privacy & your files.

Something else is broken

Fix: Tell the makers directly from inside the studio.

❯ report
  (sends a bug report with context so the makers can see what happened)

feedback works the same way for suggestions rather than bugs. Fixes ship frequently, often the same week feedback is given, and update fetches the latest version, cryptographically verified so pod refuses anything tampered with. For repairing an individual film (a bad shot, a re-cut, a dub), head to the fixing page.