How to pick up a job again after you have lost track of the versions

Last updated 2026-09-22 · 8 min read

What is the short version?

You closed the tab, or it is a week later, and there are several renders sitting around with names that meant something at the time. Starting the job again is expensive and unnecessary, because the work still exists and Vizard Agent can tell you which file is which.

1. Tell Vizard Agent you have lost track and ask what exists.
2. Have it compare the versions rather than describe them.
3. Agree which one is the master before asking for changes.

What do you need before you start?

Almost nothing. A link to any version, the name of the job, or a description of what it was will let Vizard Agent find the rest, and if you have the most recent delivered file that is the best starting point of all.

• Any link you still have. The last one delivered is ideal.
• What the job was. A dub, a cut, a set of clips.
• Roughly when. It narrows the search.
• What you think is missing. A version, a file, the subtitles.
• What you want next. The change you came back to make.

What do you type into Vizard Agent?

Say it plainly. There is no penalty for admitting you lost the thread, and it is a far better opening than asking for a change to "the video", which is ambiguous the moment more than one version exists.

Prompt

Variants worth knowing:

• "Show me what versions exist." An inventory, not a summary.
• "Which is the clean master." The actual question.
• "Carry on from that one." Names the starting point explicitly.

What does Vizard Agent actually do?

Here is the Vizard Agent sequence on a job picked up again after the user closed the tab on it. Only the first few steps are recovery work, and everything after that is the job continuing as though the interruption had never happened at all.

1. Looks for the last link to the finished result.
2. Loads the editing rules for the kind of job it was.
3. Checks the file's duration and tracks and extracts frames.
4. Reviews the edit and where the subtitles sit on those frames.
5. Gets an exact transcript of the original speech to continue the translation work.
6. Checks the burnt-in subtitle boundary to see whether reframing is possible.
7. Measures the maximum height of the burnt-in subtitles across the source frames.
8. Tests removing the burnt-in line without cropping the frame.
9. Tests reframing above the subtitle zone as an alternative.
10. Compares the saved versions for a clean copy and assembles them into one comparison frame.
11. Checks the durations and availability of the older versions.

Step ten is the one to ask for by name. Filenames lie, timestamps are ambiguous and "final_v3" is not evidence — but five versions side by side in one image, with their durations underneath, answers the question in a glance.

Step three matters because the file you have may not be the file you think. Checking the duration and the tracks establishes whether the copy in hand is the full-length master or the trimmed social cut.

Steps six to nine show the recovered job continuing properly. Rather than working from a version with burnt-in subtitles, Vizard Agent goes back to the question of whether a clean picture can be recovered at all.

What does the result look like?

An inventory you can act on: the versions that exist, their durations, which one is clean, and what each of them contains. From there the job continues from the right file, rather than from whichever render happened to be in your downloads folder.

When does this not work well?

Some work genuinely cannot be recovered. If nothing was ever delivered, if the links have expired, or if the files only existed on a machine you no longer have, the honest answer is to start again — with a recipe so it does not happen twice.

• Nothing was delivered. There is no artefact to find.
• Expired links. The file is gone even if the record is not.
• Work only held locally. Never uploaded, never recoverable.
• Several jobs at once. Say which one you mean.
• Very old projects. Storage policies win eventually.

How do you fix a result that came back wrong?

Say what you expected to exist and could not find. Vizard Agent can search again by duration, by date or by what the video actually contained, and any one of those three is usually enough on its own to identify the file you had in mind.

• "That is not the one I mean." The versions are compared by duration and content.
• "There should be a longer cut." The search is repeated for that length.
• "The subtitles were removed in one of them." The versions are checked for burnt-in text.
• "I need the project, not the video." The editable files are located instead.

How does Vizard Agent compare to doing it yourself?

By hand you open five files in a player, scrub each one, and try to remember which had the corrected name card. It is not hard work; it is the kind of work that makes people give up and redo the edit, which costs far more than the comparison would have.

Common questions

Can it find work from a previous session? Vizard Agent can find what was delivered, which is usually what you need.

What if I have no link at all? Describe the job to Vizard Agent — the length, the language, the subject.

Will it know which is the latest? Vizard Agent compares content and duration rather than trusting a filename.

Can it list everything in one place? Yes. Ask Vizard Agent for a register of the videos in the project.

What if two versions look identical? Vizard Agent checks durations and frames to find the difference.

Can it recover the editable project? If one was produced, yes. Otherwise Vizard Agent rebuilds from the master.

Does asking cost anything? Comparing existing files is cheap next to re-rendering them.

What if the version I want is the wrong length? Vizard Agent can trim from the master rather than re-editing.

How do I avoid this next time? Ask Vizard Agent for a recipe and a register when the job is finished.

Can it tell me what each version contains? Yes, in a sentence each, from the frames rather than the names.

What if the links have expired? Then the files are gone, and Vizard Agent will say so rather than hunting.

Can it carry on from an old version? Yes. Name it and Vizard Agent continues from that file.

Does it remember the style we agreed? Give it the master and Vizard Agent reads the treatment back off it.

Is it worth keeping the intermediate versions? Yes — that is exactly what makes this recoverable.