# Trying to enable 2 /video/thumbs robots, but only one seem to be working.

**URL:** <https://community.transloadit.com/t/trying-to-enable-2-video-thumbs-robots-but-only-one-seem-to-be-working/18069>\
**Category:** Transloadit\
**Tags:** tender-archive\
**Created:** [February 8, 2012, 9:54am UTC](https://community.transloadit.com/t/trying-to-enable-2-video-thumbs-robots-but-only-one-seem-to-be-working/18069 "2012-02-08T09:54:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Kit\_Sunde](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex032/user_avatar/community.transloadit.com/kit_sunde/32/1566_2.png) [@Kit\_Sunde](https://community.transloadit.com/u/Kit_Sunde)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2012, 9:54am UTC](https://community.transloadit.com/t/trying-to-enable-2-video-thumbs-robots-but-only-one-seem-to-be-working/18069/1 "2012-02-08T09:54:00Z")

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> Archived from the Transloadit support forum. Originally posted on February 8, 2012; details may be outdated, see [our docs](https://transloadit.com/docs/) for current behavior. [Original thread](https://web.archive.org/web/20120505235617/http://support.transloadit.com/discussions/problems/447-trying-to-enable-2-videothumbs-robots-but-only-one-seem-to-be-working)

My assembly: [https://transloadit.com/templates/view/REDACTED](https://transloadit.com/templates/view/REDACTED)

Looks like this:  
{ “steps”: {

```auto
  "webm_encoding": {
    "use": ":original",
    "robot": "/video/encode",
    "preset": "webm"
  },
  "mp4_encoding": {
    "use": ":original",
    "robot": "/video/encode",
    "preset": "ipad-high"
  },
  "small":{
      "robot": "/video/thumbs",
      "count": 1,
      "width": 246,
      "height": 143
  },
  "preview":{
      "robot": "/video/thumbs",
      "count": 1,
      "width": 500,
      "height": 280
  },
  "export": {
    "use": [
      "webm_encoding", 
      "mp4_encoding", 
      "small", 
      "preview"],
    "robot": "/s3/store",
    "key": "REDACTED",
    "secret": "REDACTED",
    "bucket": "mp-video"
}

```

} }

For some reason when I test it out, it doesn’t do the ‘preview’ robot. Any suggestions as to why? Is it that I can only have 1 image robot?

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**Author:** ![tim-kos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tim-kos](https://community.transloadit.com/u/tim-kos)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2012, 10:37am UTC](https://community.transloadit.com/t/trying-to-enable-2-video-thumbs-robots-but-only-one-seem-to-be-working/18069/2 "2012-02-08T10:37:00Z")

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Hey Kit,

no. By default a step takes the output of its previous step as the input.

The video/thumbs robot expects a video. Since you pass “small” (which is an image) into “preview”, the “preview” step does not do anything.

You need to add  
“use”: “mp4\_encoding” to your “preview” step and everything will work fine.

You can of course have as many robots of all kinds as you want.

Kind regards  
Tim

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Kit\_Sunde](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex032/user_avatar/community.transloadit.com/kit_sunde/32/1566_2.png) [@Kit\_Sunde](https://community.transloadit.com/u/Kit_Sunde)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2012, 10:39am UTC](https://community.transloadit.com/t/trying-to-enable-2-video-thumbs-robots-but-only-one-seem-to-be-working/18069/3 "2012-02-08T10:39:00Z")

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OHH! The ‘use’ parameter makes a lot more sense to me now. Thanks for clarifying!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tim-kos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tim-kos](https://community.transloadit.com/u/tim-kos)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2012, 10:40am UTC](https://community.transloadit.com/t/trying-to-enable-2-video-thumbs-robots-but-only-one-seem-to-be-working/18069/4 "2012-02-08T10:40:00Z")

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Np. Were the docs not helpful in this regard? Is there anything in the docs that needs changing for you to have understood this better?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Kit\_Sunde](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex032/user_avatar/community.transloadit.com/kit_sunde/32/1566_2.png) [@Kit\_Sunde](https://community.transloadit.com/u/Kit_Sunde)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2012, 10:45am UTC](https://community.transloadit.com/t/trying-to-enable-2-video-thumbs-robots-but-only-one-seem-to-be-working/18069/5 "2012-02-08T10:45:00Z")

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I’ve been over the docs a few times, it makes perfect sense for me now though. I think I just had trouble internalizing it. Maybe a visual queue under an example showing the flow of the robots, something like:

```auto
:original -> /video/encode
               -> /video/encode -> /video/thumbs/
               -> /video/encode -> /s3/store

```

would’ve helped.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tim-kos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tim-kos](https://community.transloadit.com/u/tim-kos)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2012, 10:46am UTC](https://community.transloadit.com/t/trying-to-enable-2-video-thumbs-robots-but-only-one-seem-to-be-working/18069/6 "2012-02-08T10:46:00Z")

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Alright, thanks for the feedback. I think we’ll introduce something like that.

Closing this ticket for now.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex032/uploads/transloadit/original/1X/04ee57da0cb7ac8728a9ac5965c288164f4ce280.svg) [@system](https://community.transloadit.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [October 7, 2026, 9:59am UTC](https://community.transloadit.com/t/trying-to-enable-2-video-thumbs-robots-but-only-one-seem-to-be-working/18069/7 "2026-10-07T09:59:19Z")

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