pinterest.video.transcode_failed - letmepost.dev

What it checks

After uploading bytes to Pinterest’s presigned S3 endpoint, the publisher polls GET /v5/media/{id} until status reaches a terminal state. failed surfaces with this rule.

Why

Pinterest validates the uploaded video — codec, container, duration ≤ 5 min, aspect ratio. Failures don’t come back from the upload itself (S3 returns 204 either way); they only show up on the status poll. Catching the terminal-failed state as a structured rule lets the dashboard’s Post Log filter on it.

Failure response

{
  "error": {
    "code": "platform_rejected",
    "rule": "pinterest.video.transcode_failed",
    "platform": "pinterest",
    "message": "pinterest rejected the post.",
    "remediation": "Pinterest's video transcode failed. Common causes: codec other than h.264 + AAC, mp4 container errors, video > 5 min. Re-encode and retry.",
    "platformResponse": {
      "media_id": "vid-…",
      "media_type": "video",
      "status": "failed"
    }
  }
}

Remediation

Re-encode to a known-good profile:

ffmpeg -i input.mov \
  -c:v libx264 -profile:v high -pix_fmt yuv420p -crf 23 \
  -c:a aac -b:a 128k \
  -movflags +faststart \
  -t 300 \
  output.mp4

If the same file works elsewhere, it’s most often a duration > 5 min that Pinterest rejects.