Lost connection, sleep, or closing the app mid-run: what happens

Run batches overnight and sooner or later it happens: the Wi-Fi drops, the computer falls asleep, the power cuts out, or you close the app by accident. What matters is that none of these makes the app resend a prompt or charge credit twice. This article goes through each case.

The general rules

• Once Dola has started a video, the app never sends that prompt again. Every retry after that only reads the Dola chat.
• A failure while the computer is offline is never counted against an account. No health lost, no rest.
• The queue is saved on your computer. Reopen the app and the queue carries on.

Losing the connection mid-run

When a shot fails, the app checks whether the computer can reach Dola. If the computer is offline (for a shot that already has a Dola chat; on a computer using a VPN or a system proxy the app just retries as usual):

• The shot waits about 60 seconds and tries again, repeating until the connection is back.
• It keeps its Dola chat and the credit already charged, and stays with the account holding the chat.
• Waiting like this uses no retry and doesn't penalise the account.

If the connection stays down continuously for more than 30 minutes, the app stops waiting and the shot may end as Connection lost. The chat is kept: once you're back online, press Run again and the app reads the chat and saves the video if Dola finished it, without resending or charging again.

A shot that hadn't reached Dola yet retries on the normal schedule (5 seconds up to 5 minutes, each try counting as one attempt). After a long outage (about 10 minutes or more) such a shot may end as FAILED with nothing charged; once you're back online, click Run all failed shots again in the Task Queue.

If the computer is online but Dola alone can't be reached, the shot ends as Connection lost and nothing is resent.

The computer goes to sleep

When the computer sleeps, every account's browser stops. When it wakes, running shots may report page errors and then be retried.

Because every account fails at the same moment (when several accounts are running), the app treats it as the computer's problem, not the accounts', so nobody loses health. But the time asleep is time the batch isn't running.

Before leaving the computer running overnight:

• Turn off automatic sleep in your power settings.
• On a laptop, keep it plugged in and don't close the lid if that puts it to sleep.

Closing the app, or the app closing unexpectedly

The queue, each shot's status and each shot's Dola chat are stored in a database on your computer. When you open the app again:

• Accounts that were busy when the app closed go back to READY.
• Shots that already have a Dola chat reopen in read-only mode: the app reads the chat and collects the video if it's done, without sending, replying or deleting the chat.
• Shots that hadn't reached Dola run as usual.
• Accounts stuck mid-check (because the app closed during a sign-in or session check) are put back into a safe state before any browser opens.

If Dola posts only new messages after the reopen (for example, saying it couldn't make the video), the app treats it as not started: it refunds the credit and opens a new chat, never writing into the old one.

Cancelling a running shot

Click Cancel after Dola has started and the app asks first: the credit is already spent, the video may still arrive, and cancelling only stops the app waiting. If you cancel anyway, the chat is kept. Later, press Run again: the app reads the Dola chat and saves the video if it's there, without resending or charging more.

A video that arrives late

Sometimes Dola finishes a video after the shot's wait has run out. The app doesn't reopen the chat of a finished shot by itself. The card tells you that you can press Run again to read the chat and save the video.

• If that run's credit had been refunded, the app charges exactly once when it finds the video, on the day Dola made it (not against today's 4 credits).
• If the video it finds is shorter than requested, the usual short-video rule applies.

Your licence while offline

If the license server can't be reached, the app keeps running on your current plan for a while. If the computer stays offline for too long, the app may drop to Free until it can reconnect; reconnect, and if the app asks, enter your key again under Plans → Activate key. 15 or 30 second shots that meet a plan read as Free simply wait instead of failing.

Example

At 2 a.m. your home Wi-Fi drops for 12 minutes. Eight shots are running:

• 5 shots Dola had already started: their cards say they're waiting for the network, keeping the chat and credit. Once the connection returns the app reads the chats; 4 finished videos are saved and 1 still rendering is waited on.
• 3 shots hadn't reached Dola: they retry on the normal schedule. With a 12-minute outage they may end as FAILED with nothing charged; once you're online, click Run all failed shots again.
• No account loses health, and no shot is sent twice.

Summary

• Connection lost: a shot with a chat waits and retries, keeping chat and credit, without penalising the account, and only stops after 30 minutes offline in a row; a shot that hadn't reached Dola retries normally and may stop with nothing charged.
• Computer asleep: a whole-pool failure counts as the computer's fault, nobody is penalised; turn off sleep for overnight runs.
• App closed: the queue carries on when reopened; shots with a chat are only read back.
• Run again on a shot that holds a chat reads it and saves the video, without resending.
• The app never reopens a finished shot's chat by itself; press Run again when you want.