The encoding queue¶
Jobs run one at a time, in order. The queue is saved to disk as it changes, so closing the application does not lose it.
Toggle the panel with F9.
Job states¶
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Waiting | Queued, not yet dispatched |
| Encoding | Currently running |
| Complete | Encoder exited successfully and the output was published |
| Failed | Encoder failed, or the job could not be started |
| Cancelled | You stopped it, or Cancel all dropped it before it ran |
A job whose encoder is no longer available - because you removed a tool, or moved to an FFmpeg build without it - shows Unavailable encoder instead of running.
The toolbar¶
The toolbar is grouped by what the actions do.
Queueing
| Action | Effect |
|---|---|
| Queue selected inputs | Add the selected inputs without starting them |
| Queue and start | Add them and begin immediately (Ctrl+Enter) |
Running
| Action | Effect |
|---|---|
| Start queue | Run every queued job in order |
| Start selected | Run only the selected queued jobs, and stop when they are done |
Halting
| Action | Effect |
|---|---|
| Stop after current | Let the running job finish, then hold the rest |
| Cancel active | Abort the running job. The queue carries on with the next one. |
| Cancel all | Abort the running job and mark everything queued as cancelled |
Cancel active does not stop the queue
It aborts one job. If you want everything to stop, use Stop after current or Cancel all.
Housekeeping
| Action | Effect |
|---|---|
| Retry selected | Requeue finished, failed, or cancelled jobs |
| Remove selected | Drop jobs from the queue. A running job is never removed. |
| Clear finished | Remove every succeeded, failed, and cancelled job |
Retry¶
Retry accepts jobs in any terminal state - including Complete, so you can re-run something you deleted the output of.
The destination is re-validated first. If the output path has since become invalid - say another queued job now targets the same file - the job stays where it is and the reason appears in its error field rather than failing later.
What survives a restart¶
The queue is written to a versioned jobs.json in the configuration directory, atomically: a temporary file is written and then renamed into place, so an interrupted write cannot truncate the real file.
On the next start:
- Queued jobs stay queued, and stay paused. Nothing resumes on its own. You decide when encoding starts again.
- A job that was running is restored as Failed, with the error Application exited while this job was encoding, and its partial
.partfile is deleted. That is deliberate - the application cannot know whether that encode was sound, so it hands it back for you to look at and retry rather than silently resuming or silently calling it done. - Succeeded, failed, and cancelled jobs are restored as they were.
If jobs.json is corrupt, it is renamed to <name>.corrupt-<timestamp>.<ext> and the queue starts empty, rather than being overwritten. See Files and locations.
How outputs are protected¶
Every encode writes to a job-specific .part file next to the destination, and the file is renamed into place only after the encoder exits successfully. A crash, a cancellation, or a failed encode leaves the .part file, never a truncated file wearing the real name.
Two destinations are rejected before a job is queued:
- An output that is the input. You cannot encode a file over itself.
- A destination another active job already targets. Two queued jobs cannot race for the same path.
Generated names that collide with an existing file are numbered automatically, unless you tick Replace an existing file on the Output tab.
Progress and logs¶
Progress comes from the encoder itself: FFmpeg's progress output for the built-in and standalone adapters, and DeeZy's numbered stage percentages for the Dolby ones - so a DeeZy job's bar reflects its measurement and encode stages rather than jumping from 0 to 100.
- Selected job shows the command that ran and any error.
- Session log holds the running output, bounded to the most recent 3,000 lines so a long session cannot grow without limit.
The right-click menu on a job offers Start selected, Retry selected, Open output folder, Copy command, Copy error, and Remove selected.
On exit¶
Closing the application terminates every encoder process tree outright - including the grandchildren DeeZy spawns. See DeeZy encoders for why that matters.