Fix the render, not the guesswork
Sourced answers to the errors and questions people hit when they make video with code. Start with the tool you use.
Errors and things that look wrong
What does 'A delayRender() was called but not cleared after 28000ms' mean in Remotion?
Remotion waited for something to finish before capturing a frame and gave up after about 30 seconds. The causes, in order of how often they bite: continueRender never called, blocked network, too much concurrency, a large OffthreadVideo, rate-limited remote assets.
What does 'Composition HTML is empty or could not be parsed' mean in HyperFrames?
A data-composition-src that points at an empty, partial or missing file was the most common HyperFrames render failure in the project's own telemetry. Here is what the error means, what older versions did, and the fix.
What does 'delayRender "Loading root component" was called but not cleared' mean in Remotion?
This one is not about your code. It means Remotion was pointed at a file that never calls registerRoot(). Pass the right entry point and it goes away.
What does 'Timed out evaluating page function' mean in Remotion?
It looks like a delayRender problem and it is not. The browser stopped responding because it is overloaded. The fix is usually to lower concurrency, not to hunt for an uncleared handle.
What does 'TooManyRequestsException: Rate Exceeded' mean on Remotion Lambda?
You hit your AWS Lambda concurrency limit. New AWS accounts are sometimes capped as low as 10. How to render anyway with concurrency set lower, see your limits, and request an increase.
Why do my fonts look wrong in a HyperFrames render, and what is FONT_FETCH_FAILED?
A font that looks right in preview can fall back, change weight or fail the render outright. Embed the font with @font-face, understand what the compiler does with a named Google Font, and know why Arial and Segoe UI behave differently from Helvetica.
Why does a HyperFrames render go black when I nest paused GSAP timelines?
Combining paused scene timelines with parent.add(child) makes the parent report a duration of 0 and leaves the children frozen at time zero. It is GSAP behaviour, not a regression, and lint and check do not catch it.
Why does every HyperFrames render take 45 seconds longer than it should?
A composition that never registers a GSAP timeline still makes the renderer wait for one, and gives up after a fixed 45 seconds. The cost is flat on every render. One attribute removes it.
Why does HyperFrames render my empty scaffold instead of my composition?
If check, snapshot and render all succeed but show a blank black video, you may have two entry files. HyperFrames opens the top-level index.html by default, and that may not be the one you wrote.
Why does my HyperFrames render look different from the preview?
Preview and render run the same runtime, so a real difference has a specific cause: fonts, remote media, a cold-seek state problem, the wrong entry file, or a variable that never arrived. Here is how to find which.
Why does my HyperFrames video clip render black or freeze?
A video clip that plays in preview but renders black usually needs its own data-start and data-duration, not just a timed wrapper. Also covers clips shorter than their slot and videos that freeze while their box animates.
Why is an element invisible in my HyperFrames render but fine in preview?
A render worker seeks straight to a frame and restores the authored state, not whatever the preview last showed. Elements that start hidden need their visible end state stated explicitly, and a fromTo shows its from-state before it starts.
Why is my first HyperFrames video a still image?
A composition script that throws leaves the timeline unbuilt, and older HyperFrames versions waited 45 seconds, wrote the MP4 anyway and exited 0. Here is why that happens and how current versions fail instead.
Why is my HyperFrames animation static?
If the render shows your elements frozen in their start state, HyperFrames almost certainly cannot find or seek your timeline. The timeline has to be paused and registered under the exact composition ID.
Why is my HyperFrames render black?
A black HyperFrames video almost always has one of seven causes, from rendering the wrong entry file to a video clip with no timing of its own. Here is how to tell which one you have in a few minutes.
Why is my HyperFrames render slow, and what actually speeds it up?
Separate a slow preview from a slow render, find the fixed 45 second tax, then work through source video, filters, encoding and resolution. Real fixes from HyperFrames' own performance guide.
Why is my Remotion render slow, and why does more concurrency make it worse?
Concurrency is not a dial you turn up. Too high and too low are both slow. Remotion's own performance guide, in order: video tag, concurrency benchmark, GPU effects, slow JavaScript, data fetching, codec, resolution, and Lambda.
Why is my Remotion render stuck, and what do I check first?
A Remotion render that hangs at a percentage, or at the last frame, with no error. Four checks in order: a delayRender longer than your Lambda timeout, verbose logs, Chrome Headless Shell, and the Lambda errors field.
Why is the text in my Remotion video blurry, and how do I render it crisp?
Soft text in an exported Remotion video is usually a pixel-density problem, not a compression one. Use output scaling, then CRF, then check JPEG quality, colour space and the codec. With the CRF defaults for every codec.
How to do it
How do I add a voiceover and captions to a HyperFrames video?
Generate narration locally or ask your agent for it, transcribe it into word-level timestamps, turn the transcript into readable captions, and mix music under the voice without cutting words.
How do I install HyperFrames, and why did npx skills add fail?
The current install routes for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and others, plus the three real failures people hit: a 60 second clone timeout, a missing git-lfs, and a Codex marketplace error. What each means and how to get past it.
How do I port a Remotion composition to HyperFrames, and what will not translate?
HyperFrames ships a skill that rewrites a Remotion composition as HTML and grades its own output. It translates roughly 80 percent mechanically, and refuses state-driven animation and React UI kits rather than guessing. How to run it and what to expect.
How to create a product launch video with HyperFrames
Build a 12 second, four scene product launch video from an empty folder with HyperFrames: the project layout, every file, the check and snapshot commands, a real render, and the mistakes the linter catches. Tested on HyperFrames 0.8.134.
How to create a product launch video with Remotion
Build a 12 second, four scene product launch video in Remotion: scaffold, fonts, one React component per scene, Studio, stills and a real render. Every file and command was run on Remotion 4.0.533.
Should you, and what does it cost
Do I need a Remotion Company License, and what counts as a render?
Free for teams of up to three people. At four or more you need a Company License, and if you automate rendering you need the per-render Automators plan, with a $100 monthly minimum. Stills count as renders. Studio previews do not.
Is Remotion worth it for SaaS feature and launch videos?
An honest read: Remotion is excellent when video is a feature of your product, and a heavy way to make a one-off marketing asset. The licence, the Lambda bill and the engineering time, and how to tell which side you are on.
How it works
What are the HyperFrames determinism rules, in one checklist?
Same composition, same video, every time, as long as nothing in a frame reads the clock, an unseeded random number or the network. The rules, the reason for each, and the lint codes that enforce them.
Why did HyperFrames check pass and render exit 0 when my video is wrong?
HyperFrames can produce a valid-looking MP4 from a composition that is structurally fine and visually wrong. Here is the class of bug, what has been fixed to fail loudly, and what to verify yourself.
Why does my video render look different from the preview?
The principle behind every preview-versus-render mismatch in code-to-video tools: a frame must be a pure function of its time. Here is what breaks that, how HyperFrames and Remotion each enforce it, and how to test for it.
Frequently asked questions
Short, sourced answers to the specific errors and questions people hit when they make video with code, starting with HyperFrames and Remotion. Each one names the real cause, gives the fix, and says how to check it worked.
From the projects' own issue trackers, discussions, documentation and changelogs. Every answer lists its sources, so you can check the cause yourself instead of taking our word for it.
No. They are written for anyone using HyperFrames or Remotion. GenMotion is mentioned once at the foot of an answer, and only where it is relevant.
Yes. Every answer has a plain Markdown twin one suffix away, for example /answers/<slug>.md, and every answer is listed in llms.txt.