Mischief 1 Troubleshooting: Find the Stage That Needs Attention

Mischief 1 troubleshooting starts with the stage that stopped, not with another render. An image that never fills the upload box, a job that stays Queued or Generating, a card marked Failed (refunded), and a Done clip whose Download MP4 does not save a file are different problems. If Mischief 1 is not working, name that stage and take the smallest next step. A quiet page is not a status board, and it is not a reason to submit the same clip again.

The first-run walkthrough — attaching a still and describing motion — is the image-to-video guide. Stay here when a run has already stalled, the form refused the click, or the finished file will not save. The form itself is the generator.

If Mischief 1 is not working, start from what you see

Use the row that matches the screen in front of you. The badge names come from My videos: Queued, Generating, Done, Failed (refunded), and Canceled. The generator has no Cancel control.

Before a job exists

The form can refuse a click without creating a history card. Work through the checks below only until the red line disappears or the button changes to Generating.

• Sign-in. If you are signed out, Generate opens the sign-in dialog. It does not create a job, and the label does not change to Generating.
• File type and size. A file the browser does not report as JPEG, PNG, or WebP is rejected with “Image must be JPG, PNG or WebP.” A file over 4 MB is rejected with “Image must be 4 MB or smaller.” Both messages appear before any job exists.
• Preview. An accepted file replaces the dashed box with the picture, plus Replace and Remove image. Remove image clears it. If you still see “Click to upload an image”, Generate answers “Please upload an image first.”
• Prompt. An empty motion field answers “Please describe the motion.” The field stops at 2,000 characters.
• Permission checkbox. It appears once an image is attached. The label is “I have the rights to this image, and any real person in it has agreed.” Leave it unchecked and the form answers “Please confirm the image consent checkbox.” Passing the checkbox does not rule out a later rejection.

Resolution is 480p or 720p. Duration is 3 s or 5 s. The button's number is the cost of this click — on Mischief 1, one credit per second at 480p and two per second at 720p; other models cost more — not your balance. The balance is the Credits figure in the settings sidebar and the Credit balance on Settings → Credits.

If the balance cannot cover that cost, the form shows “You need N credits for this video.” with Get credits, and no history card is created. Open pricing only when you mean to buy a new render. Buying credits does not fetch a clip that already finished.

Other refusals are also printed in red and still create no charge. The sentence may say the prompt or image does not meet the usage guidelines, that a safety check is temporarily unavailable, that you are generating too fast, that a free account hit its daily video cap, that the network sent too many requests, or that generation is paused for the day. Those messages say no credits were charged. Wait, or change the input they name. They are the checks this site runs before a provider job exists, not a catalogue of every reason a model host might later reject a file.

While a job is queued or generating

After a click is accepted, the button says Generating and stays disabled until this form leaves that state. There is no Cancel control next to it. Wait until the label reads Generating before you assume a second click is blocked; a double click that lands before the label changes can start two jobs.

The waiting panel's bar is labeled Rendering and shows a percent. The model does not report a real percent. The bar is an estimate, and it is built to hold below 100% until the job finishes. The same panel says “This usually takes 30–90 seconds.” That is the usual-wait note on the screen, not a deadline. A card can still say Queued or Generating after that window. A still page does not mean the job has failed.

You can leave the generator. The clip keeps generating. Open My videos from the panel, from the account menu, or from the settings sidebar. The list refreshes on its own while any visible card is Queued or Generating. Each card shows the badge, the time in your browser's local clock, the prompt, the resolution, the duration, and the credit cost. It does not print a separate job-id label. A screenshot of the card is the record worth keeping.

One click is one job, including when the form repeats that same request because the connection dropped. A later click, another browser tab, or Generate after a reload is a new job and spends credits again. Do not submit a second render to hurry a card that still says Queued or Generating. Wait until it says Done or Failed (refunded).

When the badge says Failed (refunded)

Read the sentence on the card, or the red line on the generator. Then open Settings → Credits and read Credit balance before you generate again.

A failed job returns the credits that job consumed. The return is recorded when the job is marked failed, which is what the badge Failed (refunded) is telling you. There is no extra waiting period to sit through. This is a credit return for that job, not a cash refund of a purchase. Purchase refunds are a separate process in the refund policy.

• The text says the credits have been refunded, that generation did not start, that video generation is temporarily unavailable, or that the video was removed by a safety check. There will be no player. Confirm the balance, then decide whether a new attempt is worth the cost on the button.
• The text says the image or prompt was rejected by the model. Change the still or the wording before you spend credits again. The same input is rejected again.
• The text says no credits were charged. That attempt never became a billed job. Fix the cause the sentence names. Do not look for a refund of credits you did not spend.

A clip you can play, with the badge Done, is not in this list. Motion you dislike is not a failed job, and those credits stay spent. There is no Retry button. When the form is idle again, Generate starts a new job at the printed cost. If a card says Canceled, you still have no cancel control to press. Read the card and check the balance the same way.

Done, but Download MP4 does not save a file

Confirm the badge is Done and a player is on the card. Queued, Generating, Failed (refunded), and Canceled mean there is no finished file to fetch. The player is a preview. Download MP4 is a different control: while you are signed in as the owner, it asks this site to send the MP4 as a file. On a phone that can share files you may see Share MP4. Otherwise you see Copy link, which copies a private address that opens only for that signed-in owner. It is not a public file.

A preview can play when the download is blocked by the browser, a signed-out session, or the network. A file can also save when you only wanted to watch. If Copy link reports that it could not copy, use Download MP4. That note is about the clipboard, not about a missing render. When a download does succeed, the filename begins with clipwhim- and ends in .mp4.

If Download MP4 still produces no file, stay on that card. Do not pay for a new render to recover the finished one. A new Generate creates a different clip and charges again. Finished files are not promised to remain available forever. When the file is missing, ask for help with the card details rather than rendering a substitute and treating it as the same job.

The clip plays, but the motion looks wrong

Done, plus a file you can watch, means the job succeeded. Odd motion is an output result. It is not evidence of an outage, and it does not use the Failed (refunded) path.

Change one thing, then render once, and only if you want a new clip. A neutral case: a photo of a window with venetian blinds, where the shadow bands shiver even though you wanted a still room. Crop the still to a wide frame yourself so you choose what the widescreen output keeps, or ask for a single slow change and say the blinds stay still. Neither change is a guarantee. A silent file is the normal MP4 from this generator, not a broken download. For other motion ideas, use the prompt guide rather than stacking paid retries.

What to include when you ask for help

Use the contact page. If you are signed in, the Contact support button at the bottom right, or Settings → Support, can carry the same note. Do not send a password, a session token, or a card number. The form can take images; attach one only when you have permission to share it.

1. The time printed on the My videos card, and your timezone. That clock is your browser's local time and does not name the zone.
2. The badge: Queued, Generating, Done, Failed (refunded), or Canceled.
3. The prompt, resolution, duration, and credit cost shown on that card.
4. The exact red line or card sentence, copied rather than paraphrased.
5. Browser and device, and whether the preview played, Download MP4 failed, or both.
6. The Copy link path, or the clipwhim-….mp4 filename, only if you already have it. Do not invent an id the card does not show.