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My meeting is stuck in 'Processing' — what to do

What to do when your meeting summary is taking too long, shows "Processing" for hours, or ends up with an error.

Written by Coral Hartman
Updated over a month ago

How long does processing normally take?

Most meetings finish summarizing within 5–20 minutes after the meeting ends. Longer recordings (1 hour+) can take up to 30 minutes.

If it's been more than 45 minutes and the status still shows "Processing" or "Being summarised", something likely went wrong.

Common reasons a meeting gets stuck or fails

  • Meeting was too short — Timeless requires at least 3 minutes of audio to generate a summary. Very short meetings will not be processed.

  • The AI bot was stuck in the waiting room — If your Zoom/Meet meeting had a waiting room and no one admitted the bot, it never actually joined and recorded nothing. Check your Zoom settings to disable the waiting room or always admit the bot manually.

  • The bot was removed mid-meeting — If the bot was kicked out before the meeting ended, only a partial recording was captured, which may not be enough to summarize.

  • Audio/recording error — Technical issues during the meeting (internet drops, microphone failure) can result in a recording that can't be processed.

  • Meeting title contains special characters — Titles with characters like <>, ", or : have been known to cause processing failures. Try renaming the meeting and re-processing.

  • A known service disruption — Check the Timeless status page to see if there is an ongoing issue.

What to do

  1. Wait and refresh — If the meeting ended less than 45 minutes ago, wait a little longer and refresh the page.

  2. Check the AI Notes tab — Open the meeting in Timeless and click the AI Notes tab. You may see an error message there that explains what happened.

  3. Try re-processing — If you see a "Try again" or "Re-process" option, click it. This can sometimes recover a stuck job.

  4. Upload the recording manually — If you have a local recording of the meeting, you can upload it directly to get a transcript and summary.

  5. Contact support — If none of the above works, email hey@magical.team with the following details so we can investigate:

    • Meeting name

    • Exact date and time

    • Your Timeless login email

    • A screenshot of what you see in the meeting space

💡 Tip: To avoid future issues, make sure the Timeless bot is admitted to your meeting promptly. The bot waits up to 10 minutes in a Zoom/Google Meet/Teams waiting room before giving up. If your meeting starts late, use the Add AI button in Timeless to add the bot manually.

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