Google Flow repeatedly fails at 3–4% with “Generation failed” — tried multiple prompts and ingredient combinations
I'm trying to create a short cinematic scene in Google Flow with two reusable characters, Rahul and Sneha, but every generation fails at around 3–4% with “Generation failed.” The video is never produced.
I'm trying to understand whether I'm doing something wrong, or whether this is a Flow/Veo issue.
The scene
The scene is set in a tea-estate/mountain location in Valparai, Tamil Nadu.
Rahul is sitting on a motorcycle facing the camera, and Sneha is standing beside him. Rahul gives Sneha his card and says:
“என் பேர் ராஹுல்... வால்பாறைல உங்களுக்கு எந்த ஹெல்ப் வேணும்னாலும் எனக்கு கண்டிப்பா கால் பண்ணுங்க.”
Originally, Sneha was also supposed to take the card, shake Rahul's hand and say:
“ரொம்ப Thanks. என் பேரு ஸ்னேஹா.”
The characters are reusable characters with assigned voices.
Models I used
I did NOT use only Omni Flash.
When I used three ingredients, I used Veo 3.1 Lite.
When I needed four ingredients, I used Gemini/Omni Flash.
The four ingredients were:
Background image
Positioning image
@Rahul
@Sneha
First approach
I created a background image showing the road-facing tea-estate location.
I attached:
- background
- @Rahul
- @Sneha
The prompt instructed Flow to use the background as the location, use the two reusable characters, place Rahul on the motorcycle and Sneha beside him, and have Rahul deliver his Tamil dialogue.
This failed.
We then simplified the scene
We removed Sneha's dialogue completely.
Only Rahul was supposed to speak.
We also removed background music, narration and unnecessary descriptions.
The prompt became much simpler.
We then created a positioning image
Because Flow was having difficulty placing Rahul and Sneha correctly, I created a separate image called positioning.
This image already shows:
- Rahul sitting on the motorcycle
- Sneha standing beside him
- Their relative positions
- The motorcycle
- The road
- The tea shop
- The surrounding tea-estate environment
We then tried four ingredients:
- background
- positioning
- @Rahul
- @Sneha
Since four ingredients required Omni Flash, I used Omni Flash for this configuration.
We explicitly told Flow that Rahul and Sneha were already present in the positioning image and to preserve their respective positions.
This also failed around 3–4%.
We then removed the background
We tried using only:
- positioning
- @Rahul
- @Sneha
The positioning image was now supposed to act as both the location reference and the composition/positioning reference.
We also removed the unnecessary text instruction saying that Rahul sits on the motorcycle and Sneha stands beside him, because that information was already visible in the positioning image.
This also failed at around 3–4%.
The simplest prompt we tried
At one point we reduced the prompt to essentially this:
“Use the attached positioning image as the location and composition reference. @Rahul and @Sneha are already present in this image. Preserve the location, composition and their respective positions shown in the positioning image.
Use @Rahul and @Sneha as the character references. Preserve their established appearance and assigned voices.
Rahul hands his card to Sneha and speaks naturally while looking at her.
Rahul: என் பேர் ராஹுல்... வால்பாறைல உங்களுக்கு எந்த ஹெல்ப் வேணும்னாலும் எனக்கு கண்டிப்பா கால் பண்ணுங்க.
Sneha listens naturally and looks at Rahul.
Only Rahul speaks in this clip. No dialogue for Sneha. No additional dialogue, narration or voice-over. Natural Tamil speech and accurate lip sync. Gentle rain and natural roadside ambience. No background music. No captions or on-screen text.”
Even this very simplified prompt failed at around 3–4%.
So at this point I'm having difficulty believing that the failure is simply caused by the prompt being too complicated.
Other things we tried
We progressively simplified the generation:
- Removed Sneha's dialogue
- Removed background music
- Removed narration
- Explicitly said only Rahul speaks
- Explicitly said no additional dialogue
- Used "@Rahul" and "@Sneha"
- Removed unnecessary location descriptions
- Removed unnecessary positioning descriptions when the positioning image already showed them
- Tried three-ingredient configurations with Veo 3.1 Lite
- Tried four-ingredient configurations with Omni Flash
- Tried the background image separately
- Tried the positioning image as both background and positioning reference
Every configuration failed before producing a video.
The failure consistently happens very early — approximately 3–4%.
Credit problem
There is another serious issue.
After each failed generation, Flow displays:
“Generation failed”
and says:
“You have not been charged for this transaction.”
However, my credit balance actually decreases.
I've had multiple failed generations yesterday and today, and approximately 40 credits have been deducted from failed generations.
What I'm trying to figure out
At this point, I don't think the problem is simply that the prompt is too complicated, because we've progressively simplified it and removed ingredients and dialogue, but the generation still fails at almost exactly the same point.
Has anyone experienced:
- Flow failing consistently at 3–4%
- Omni Flash failing with reusable characters
- Veo 3.1 Lite failing with three ingredients
- Character voice references causing generation failures
- Tamil/non-English dialogue causing the generation to fail before rendering
- Background/positioning images causing generation failures
- Credits being deducted even though Flow says “You have not been charged”
If anyone has experienced this and found a solution, I'd really appreciate knowing exactly what you changed — model, ingredients, character setup, voice setup, prompt structure, project settings, etc.
I'm particularly interested in knowing whether this is a problem with my workflow/project, the character or voice assets, the models, or a current Flow bug.