Wrapper Errors Misread as Capability Failures Cost Two Image Generation Jobs

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A developer running an internal dashboard that routes image generation jobs across multiple backends encountered two consecutive failures one night, leading to an incorrect conclusion that no viable path existed. The first backend, a wrapper around Google's Gemini API, crashed with a JavaScript null-reference error, while the second, a fal.ai wrapper, returned an account-lockout message due to an unfunded balance. These two distinct failure types were incorrectly grouped together, with the wrapper crash being treated as equivalent to a confirmed capability limitation. A direct API call later revealed that the Gemini backend was never actually broken — the underlying service worked fine with the same credentials. The incident prompted a procedural lesson: before concluding a capability is unavailable, descend one layer and test the underlying API directly, so that a wrapper bug is never mistaken for a permanent limitation.

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