Firebase Studio troubleshooting & FAQ

Why does Firebase Studio need third-party (3P) cookies enabled?

Firebase Studio needs 3P cookies enabled since we render an iframe from one domain (a subdomain of cloudworkstations.dev) on another domain (studio.firebase.google.com), and 3P cookies enable secure cross-origin communication.

While opening a workspace, the message Unable to forward your request to backend. Couldn't connect to a server on port 80 appears.

Wait approximately five seconds and refresh the page.

How do I view the request per minute quota for my auto-generated Gemini API key?

Learn about rate limits and quota for the Gemini API.

You can view the quotas associated with your auto-generated API key on the Generative Language API Quotas and System Limits page in the Google Cloud console.

My preview doesn't load, but I can't find any issues in code. How can I restart Firebase Studio?

If Firebase Studio isn't refreshing properly (typically as a result of major refactors, or changes to your environment dev.nix file), open the command palette (Cmd+Shift+P on Mac or Ctrl+Shift+P on ChromeOS, Windows, or Linux) and run the Hard Restart command. If that doesn't work, try running the Rebuild Environment command.

While creating a workspace, I see a message, Whoops...We need to start a new VM, and the UI hangs after that.

Firebase Studio maintains a warm pool of VMs used to provision workspaces on demand. When the pool runs low, the workspaces are provisioned after a new virtual machine is started. The process can take time (sometimes up to five minutes) but eventually succeeds.

When creating a workspace, I receive an internal error occurred.

In most cases of internal errors during workspace provisioning, refreshing the page after a minute or so should get you past the error and into the workspace.

How many workspaces can I create?

The Firebase Studio no-cost plan is limited to three workspaces per user. You can increase the number of workspaces you can create up to 10 by joining the Google Developer Program. To upgrade to 30 workspaces, subscribe to the Google Developer Premium Program.

My workspace loads, but the emulator is blank.

We're actively improving the reliability of our cloud-based emulators. If a page refresh does not fix the problem, report the issue to Firebase Support.

Firebase Studio workspaces have a Flutter version that is incompatible with my project.

You can upgrade or downgrade the version of almost all pre-installed software inside a workspace just as you would on your local machine (using apt-get or brew). You can upgrade or downgrade software in your workspace, but installed software is not persistent across sessions. We recommend including all required packages in your dev.nix file.

We're actively working to improve Flutter version management in Firebase Studio.

I shared my workstation URL with someone, but they cannot see it.

You can only share a workspace URL with users that have access to the workspace. Users without permission see an error when trying to visit the URL. Be sure to explicitly share the workspace with them.

When I share my workstation, what can my collaborator see?

Users added to your workspace have complete access to the VM's entire file system, which may contain sensitive files like private keys and access tokens that are stored on disk. Only share your workspace with people you trust. While this approach helps other users view the exact state of your workspace, it means that they see everything on your workspace.

I shared my workspace; why can't my collaborator publish or monitor my app?

Users added to your workspace may not have permission to its underlying Firebase project which powers the "App overview" publishing and monitoring features. To grant them permission to your Firebase project, see Permissions and access to Firebase projects

Can I use frameworks that Firebase Studio does not have a template for to build my application?

Yes! You can customize your environment to work with just about any framework or language in Firebase Studio.

What target directory should I select when publishing a Flutter app to Firebase Hosting?

Choose the build/web directory. This directory should contain an index.html and all the static assets needed to render your web app after the app is built successfully (via flutter build web).

How can I set up my app's backend on my workspace so that my frontend can communicate with it?

You can temporarily publicly open the TCP port your backend server is running on to make it easier to develop your frontend and backend separately, across different workspaces:

1. Start your backend or API server either manually in a terminal, or as part of your dev.nix file's preview configuration or onStart lifecycle hook.

2. Click the Firebase Studio icon in the activity bar (on the left by default) to open the Firebase Studio panel.

3. 

   Expand the Backend ports section to see a list of running servers, including their port number and process ID (PID).

4. Click the Make public icon (a lock) to the left of the port number.

5. Click the Copy URL icon to the right of the port number to copy its fully-qualified URL.

6. You can now reference this URL directly (for example, with a fetch call) from your frontend.

I closed my preview tab. How do I bring it back?

Open the command palette using Ctrl+Shift+P (or Cmd-Shift-P on MacOS), then select Firebase Studio: Show Android preview or Firebase Studio: Show web preview.

What is Code OSS?

Code-Open Source Software (Code-OSS) is an open-source project that's the core layer of VS Code. Code-OSS is available on GitHub under the standard MIT License, and is where Microsoft develops the VS Code product.

How can I prevent my code completions and Gemini chat prompts from being used as training data?

Your use of Firebase Studio is governed by the Google Terms of Service.

However, note that your use of generative AI features within Firebase Studio is governed by the Generative AI Prohibited Use Policy and the Gemini API Additional Terms of Service (specifically governed by Gemini API Additional Terms of Service: Unpaid Services).

To block the use of your prompts and responses for model training, do not use the App Prototyping agent, and do not use Gemini in Firebase within Firebase Studio. To block the use of your code for model training, turn off code completion and code indexing in your Firebase Studio settings.

How do I submit a feature request or feedback on an issue I encountered?

If you encounter an issue while using Firebase Studio or have a feature request, contact Firebase Support.

I was using a particular feature in Firebase Studio but I can't find it anymore. Why was it removed?

Some of the features in Firebase Studio are experimental. We value your feedback and actively use it to inform our current and planned feature set, periodically removing features that aren't living up to your expectations or our own. If there are features you'd like to see in your ideal version of Firebase Studio, send us feedback. We want to hear from you!

I was unable to create a project

When provisioning resources like a Gemini API key or deploying to Firebase App Hosting, a project is automatically provisioned for you, based on the name of your Firebase Studio workspace. If you receive a "Failed to create a project" error, check to ensure that your workspace name does not include special characters. Only letters, numbers, quotes, hyphens, spaces, and exclamation points are valid in Firebase project names.