Avatar validation failed: fix it, or skip verification

Google autocomplete for "heygen avatar v" includes "heygen avatar validation failed" and "heygen avatar verification", which shows people get stuck on a verification step. I did not find an official explanation, so I will not guess at HeyGen's cause. On Sume there is no manual verification step in the docs: avatar creation is a job you poll until it completes, and a failed job returns a public error.

What the autocomplete shows

Autocomplete tells you what people search for, not why something fails. Treat it as demand, not diagnosis.

How a Sume avatar create reports problems

Avatar 1.0 creation takes an avatar_handle and an input of type prompt, props (a profile) or photo. For photo input, image_url must be a fetchable public HTTPS image URL; localhost, private-network, non-HTTPS and non-image responses are rejected before generation submission. That is the check that stops a bad photo early.

After submit you poll the job. The statuses are queued, processing, completed, failed and canceled, and a failed job carries a public error. Read GET /v1/jobs/{id} for the job error, then fix the input and submit again with a new Idempotency-Key.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/avatar-1.0/generate \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: avatar-photo-001" \
  -d '{
    "avatar_handle": "reference_presenter",
    "input": { "type": "photo", "image_url": "https://example.com/reference.png" }
  }'

curl https://api.sume.com/v1/jobs/$JOB_ID/status \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY"

A checklist when a photo avatar will not build

• Open the image URL in a private window; it must load without a login.
• Use HTTPS and a direct image URL, not a page that contains an image.
• Check the job status and read the error field on a failed job.
• If you want to skip a photo, create from a prompt or a profile instead.