Troubleshooting
Common errors from the reel command, and how to fix them.
A tape's Wait times out
The message shows what it looked for, and the screen it last saw. Look for on the cursor line in it:
tape: demo.tape:11:1: wait for /Sencha/ on the cursor line timed out after 15s; the screen was:A plain Wait looks at the cursor's line. A full-screen program leaves its cursor somewhere else, so use Wait+Screen:
Wait+Screen "Sencha"If it's only slow, Set WaitTimeout 60s, or Wait@60s for one command.
unexpected character ':'
A label with a : has to be quoted, as in Mark "brew:start".
no outputs; add one with -o
reel export, and other commands that render, need to be told what to write. Add -o demo.gif.
A theme doesn't change anything
Themes set ANSI colors and defaults. Colors a program sets in 24-bit stay as they are. A recording can also have stored colors, which a later --theme doesn't override. Pass --theme when you record. See The recording's colors.
A .cast can't be written with these effects
A .cast holds the raw recording, so --redact*, --hide, or a tape's Hide or Redact can't apply to it. Write it in a separate run, without them. A tape that uses Hide can't write a .cast at all, so take the Hide out if you need one.
The last frame is just my shell
The recording ran until the program quit. Cut it with --between ,mark, using a mark from before it quit:
reel export in.cast --between ,brew:done -o out.pngffmpeg
MP4, WebM, and WebP need ffmpeg on your PATH. See what to check.
A session isn't found
The exit code is 4. reel s list shows what's running. A session goes away --linger after its program exits, 10 minutes by default. If several are running, name one with -s or REEL_SESSION.
Icons are boxes
Use a Nerd Font with --font. reel fonts lists what's installed.
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