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Video Processing

 

What This Page Does

The Video Processing Dashboard shows you what's happening with your videos as they're being converted and prepared for your site. After someone uploads a video, it needs to be processed - converted to different formats, thumbnails created, and files uploaded to storage. This dashboard lets you see which videos are being worked on right now, which ones are waiting in line, and if any videos had problems during processing.

Think of it like tracking a package delivery - you can see where each video is in the process and get notified if something goes wrong.

[Screenshot: video-processor-dashboard-main]

How to Get Here

Navigate to Admin Panel > Videos > Video Processing Dashboard

Understanding the Page

When you first open the dashboard, you'll see several sections that give you a complete picture of your video processing system.

Quick Stats at the Top

Six boxes show you the most important numbers at a glance:

  • Pending Jobs - How many videos are waiting to be processed
  • Processing Jobs - How many videos are being worked on right now
  • Completed Today - How many videos finished processing successfully
  • Failed Today - How many videos had errors
  • Avg Wait Time - How long videos typically wait before processing starts
  • Avg Processing Time - How long it typically takes to process a video

A line graph shows you how many videos were processed over time. You can see patterns - like if processing speeds up overnight or slows down during busy hours.

Currently Processing (Left Side)

Shows the videos being worked on right now, with progress bars showing how far along they are.

Job Type Performance (Right Side)

A colorful pie chart showing what types of processing work your system is doing - converting videos, creating thumbnails, uploading to storage, etc.

Pending Queue (Below)

A list of videos waiting to be processed, showing which ones will be worked on next.

Recent Errors (Bottom)

If any videos had problems during processing, you'll see them here with details about what went wrong.

Common Tasks

How to Monitor Processing Status

This page updates automatically every 30 seconds, so you can just leave it open and watch as videos move through the system.

  1. Look at the Pending Jobs number to see if videos are backing up.
  2. Check Processing Jobs to confirm the system is actively working.
  3. Watch the Failed Today number - if it's growing, something may be wrong.
Tip: The green dot and "Auto Refresh" indicator at the top shows the page is updating automatically. You don't need to click refresh.

How to Check on a Specific Video

  1. Scroll down to the Currently Processing section to see videos being worked on right now.
  2. Check the Pending Queue section to see if your video is waiting in line.
  3. If you don't see it in either place, it's either already finished or had an error.
Tip: Look for the video's title in the list. If you can't find it, go to the Video Management page to check its status.

How to Fix Processing Errors

When videos fail to process, they appear in the Recent Processing Errors section at the bottom.

  1. Read the error message to understand what went wrong.
  2. Check if it's a one-time problem or if many videos are failing.
  3. Fix the underlying issue (see Troubleshooting section below).
  4. Click the red Clear All Errors button to mark them as reviewed.
  5. The system will automatically retry failed videos.
Warning: Clicking "Clear All Errors" doesn't delete the videos - it just removes the error messages from this screen. The videos will still need to be reprocessed.

How to Clear Error Notifications

After you've reviewed and addressed processing errors:

  1. Click the red Clear All Errors button at the top of the errors section.
  2. Confirm when asked "Are you sure you want to clear all errors?"
  3. The error section will disappear from the page.
  4. New errors will show up here as they occur.

How to Change the Time View

The page can show you different time periods of data.

  1. Look at the time range buttons near the top: 1h, 24h, 7d, 30d.
  2. Click one to see data from that time period.
  3. The charts and statistics update to show the selected timeframe.
Tip: Use 1h for real-time monitoring, 24h for daily operations, and 7d or 30d to spot longer-term trends.

What You're Seeing

Progress Bars

Videos that are currently processing show a progress bar with a percentage. This tells you how close they are to being finished. For example, "65%" means the video is about two-thirds done processing.

Priority Badges

Each pending video has a colored priority badge:

  • Red (High) - Will be processed first
  • Amber (Medium) - Normal priority
  • Blue (Low) - Will be processed after higher priority videos
Note: You can set video priority when uploading or editing videos on other admin pages.

Wait Time

Shows how long a video has been sitting in the queue waiting to be processed. If wait times are getting very long (over 30 minutes), you may have a backlog.

Processing Time

Shows how long it's taking to process videos. Longer videos naturally take more time. If processing times suddenly increase, your server might be overloaded.

Job Types

Different types of processing work:

  • Transcode - Converting the video to web-friendly formats
  • Generate Thumbnails - Creating preview images
  • Generate Sprites - Creating timeline previews
  • Upload CDN - Uploading files to your storage server
  • Generate Preview - Creating short preview clips
  • Generate GIF - Creating animated preview GIFs

Tips for New Users

Tip:
  • Check this dashboard regularly when uploading multiple videos to make sure processing is keeping up.
  • If the "Pending Jobs" number keeps growing, your upload rate is faster than your processing speed.
  • The "Processing Trends" chart helps you identify the best times to upload bulk content.
  • Clear errors promptly so you can spot new problems quickly.
  • If you see repeated failures for the same type of job (like "Upload CDN"), there may be a configuration problem.

Troubleshooting

Videos stay in "Processing" forever

What you see: Videos show as processing but the progress bar never moves or the video never completes.

How to fix it:

  1. Wait at least 30 minutes - large videos can take time.
  2. Check the Video Management page to see if the video status changed.
  3. If still stuck after an hour, there may be a system problem - contact your technical support or check the server logs.

 

High number of failed videos

What you see: The "Failed Today" count is high, or you see many errors in the Recent Errors section.

How to fix it:

  1. Read the error messages to identify the problem type.
  2. Common causes:

 

  • "Out of disk space" - Your server is full
  • "FFmpeg error" - Video file format is corrupt or unsupported
  • "CDN upload failed" - Connection problem with your storage server

 

  1. Fix the underlying cause first, then click Clear All Errors.
  2. The system will automatically retry the failed videos.

 

Pending queue keeps growing

What you see: The "Pending Jobs" number gets bigger and bigger, videos take very long to appear on your site.

How to fix it:

  1. You're uploading videos faster than they can be processed.
  2. Solutions:

 

  • Upload fewer videos at once
  • Wait for the queue to clear before uploading more
  • Contact technical support about increasing processing capacity

 

Note: This is normal during initial bulk uploads. The queue will eventually process all videos, it just takes time.

No videos are being processed

What you see: "Processing Jobs" shows 0, "Pending Jobs" has a number, but nothing is happening.

How to fix it:

  1. The automatic processing system may not be running.
  2. This requires technical help - contact your system administrator or hosting support.
  3. Tell them: "The video_processor.php cron job is not running."

 

Page shows "No chart data available"

What you see: Empty charts with a message that no data is available.

How to fix it:

  1. Try selecting a longer time period (click 7d or 30d).
  2. If you just installed the site, there may not be any processing history yet.
  3. Upload and process a few videos to generate data for the charts.

 

Error messages won't clear

What you see: You click "Clear All Errors" but nothing happens or you get an error message.

How to fix it:

  1. Refresh the page in your browser.
  2. Try clicking "Clear All Errors" again.
  3. If it still doesn't work, log out and log back in to the admin panel.

 

What the Charts Tell You

This graph shows three lines over time:

  • Green line (Completed) - Successfully processed videos
  • Red line (Failed) - Videos that had errors
  • Brand green line (Created) - New videos added to the queue

What to look for:

  • If the green line is high, your system is processing lots of videos successfully.
  • If the red line spikes, many videos failed at that time - investigate what happened.
  • If the "Created" line is consistently above the "Completed" line, your queue is growing and you may develop a backlog.

 

Job Type Performance (Pie Chart)

Shows the breakdown of what types of work your system is doing.

What to look for:

  • The biggest slices show which types of processing are most common.
  • Hover over a slice to see details including how many failed.
  • If one type has a very high failure rate, there may be a specific problem with that process.

 

Page When to Use It
Video Management To see all videos on your site and their statuses
Video Upload To add new videos
Video Processor Settings To change how videos are processed (requires technical knowledge)
Video Queue Visualizer For advanced queue management (requires technical knowledge)

Understanding Processing Steps

When a video is uploaded, it goes through several steps automatically:

  1. Extract Metadata - System reads video information (length, resolution, etc.)
  2. Transcode - Converts video to web-friendly formats
  3. Generate Thumbnails - Creates preview images
  4. Generate Sprites - Creates timeline preview images
  5. Generate Preview - Creates short preview clips
  6. Generate GIF - Creates animated preview
  7. Upload CDN - Uploads all files to your storage/CDN
  8. Cleanup - Removes temporary files

Each of these is a separate "job" that you'll see in the dashboard. A single video upload creates multiple processing jobs.

Note: You don't need to do anything for these steps to happen - they all occur automatically. The dashboard just lets you monitor the progress.

Auto-Refresh Behavior

The page automatically reloads every 30 seconds to show you the latest information. You'll see a green pulsing dot with "Auto Refresh: 30s" at the top of the page.

Tip: If you're reading error messages in detail, you can slow down the refresh by adding ?refresh=300 to the end of the page URL. This will make it refresh every 5 minutes instead, giving you more time to read.

When to Use This Page

Use the Video Processing Dashboard:

  • After bulk uploading videos - To monitor processing progress
  • When videos aren't appearing on your site - To check if they're stuck in processing
  • Daily monitoring - A quick health check of your video system
  • When users report videos not playing - To see if processing failed
  • Before uploading large batches - To make sure the queue is clear

You don't need to keep this page open all the time - just check it when you're actively managing video content or troubleshooting issues.

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