A generation is stuck. What happens to the credits?
·3 min read
On this page
You can just wait — the credits come back on their own. Every five minutes we look for stalled jobs: anything with no answer after 20 minutes becomes eligible, and after two hours it is confirmed failed and refunded. There is nothing for you to do. The refund appears in Settings → Subscription as a line beginning `Refund:`. Most shots finish in 20–40 seconds, so if a card is still empty after three minutes, refresh first — a finished shot that the screen did not pick up is the most common case by far.
Try this first
- Refresh. Generation runs on the server, so it continues even if you close the tab. A finished shot that never rendered is the usual explanation.
- Open it on another device. The same project on a phone often shows the results.
- Check your balance. If the credits are back, that job has already been settled as failed.
The clock
| Elapsed | What happens |
|---|---|
| ~40 seconds | Where it usually finishes |
| 3 minutes | Worth a refresh |
| 20 minutes | Becomes eligible for our sweep |
| 2 hours | Confirmed failed, credits refunded |
Two hours sounds long. Set it shorter and legitimately slow jobs get killed and paid for twice, so there is deliberate slack in it.
If a result does arrive late, you still get the shot. We do not claw back a refund we have already made.
Why it happens
- The model provider is busy — the most common one. Retrying usually works.
- A very large product photo — slow to read.
- Too much asked at once — eight shots in one go means the last one takes a while.
- Something on our side. It happens. The credits still come back.
If it happens every time
If the same product keeps stalling, the photo may be the problem.
- Upload it again, from a different angle.
- Save the product again.
- If it persists, send the project URL to hello@gestel.studio. We can see in the logs where it is stopping.
The credits didn't come back
If it has been more than two hours, tell us. A screenshot of the usage history is enough and we will reconcile it.
Deleted shots do not come back. Only failures refund — a shot that generated fine and you did not like was still generated.