Railway FFmpeg Video Processing Issue Report

Issue Description

Complex multi-video processing with transitions consistently fails on Railway with SIGKILL, while simple single-video processing works reliably.

Technical Details

Environment:

• Platform: Railway

• Resources: 4GB RAM, 2 vCPUs, 60-minute timeout

• FFmpeg: Properly installed at /usr/bin/ffmpeg

Failure Pattern:

• Complex filter (3 videos + transitions): Consistent SIGKILL termination

• Simple filter (1 video): Consistent success

• Same complex operations work in 20 second on local laptop

Error Logs:

Process exited with code: null signal: SIGKILL

Working vs Failing Filters:

Failing (SIGKILL):

javascript

const filter = [
  `[0:v]setpts=PTS/1.2,fps=24,eq=saturation=1.5[v0];` +
  `[1:v]setpts=PTS/1.2,fps=24,eq=saturation=1.5[v1];` +
  `[2:v]setpts=PTS/1.2,fps=24,eq=saturation=1.5[v2];`,
  `[v0][v1]${transition}[v01];` +
  `[v01][v2]${transition2}[outv]`
];

Working:

javascript

const filter = `[0:v]setpts=PTS/1.2,fps=24,eq=saturation=1.5[outv]`;

Root Cause Analysis

The consistent SIGKILL during multi-video processing indicates Railway's container environment cannot handle the memory requirements for processing multiple simultaneous video streams with complex transitions, despite having 4GB RAM allocated.

Platform Comparison

• Railway: Complex filter fails with SIGKILL, simple filter works

• Google Cloud Run: Complex filter hangs indefinitely, simple filter works

• Local environment: All operations work in ~20 second
  
  LINK GITHUB : https://github.com/hasanbarsi1/video_edit_api