Troubleshooting

Your app's computer paused after 10 minutes without activity. Your files are saved. Select Wake preview to start your app again.

While your app starts up, the Preview shows what it's doing, like "Starting your app's computer" or "Installing packages". It can take a while after a change to your app's packages. If it's been showing "Taking longer than usual" for a few minutes, reload the page. If it says "Preview can't start right now", give it a minute and try again.

Your app hit an error while running, but your files are safe. Select Ask WebDIY to fix it and WebDIY drafts a message in the chat about what went wrong, ready for you to send. You can also select Restart the app to start it again, or Show details to see what your app printed.

The page you're on stopped drawing because of an error in its code. Ask WebDIY to fix it, and mention which page it is. To look at the page as it is, select Show the page.

The Preview updates in place after a message that changes your app. If the change isn't there, select Reload in the Preview's toolbar. If it's still missing, tell WebDIY what you expected to see.

Preview links last 7 days, and a link stops working as soon as someone makes a new one. Ask a project Admin to make a fresh link in Members & sharing. A preview link is for showing the app while you build it, so to share the finished app, publish it.

The message says why it stopped:

• If it took too long, send another message, like "Carry on", and WebDIY picks up from the files it has already written.
• If your organization ran out of credits, see I'm out of credits.
• If someone pressed Stop, the work done so far is kept.

Whatever the reason, you're charged for the steps the message already ran.

If a model's reply stops partway through, WebDIY tries again once within the same message and leaves a small note. If the model's provider is busy, the chat will tell you. Try again in a moment, or pick a different model.

Usually it's one of these:

• Someone else's message is running. Only the person whose message it is can send until it ends, and the message box shows who that is. A project Admin can stop it.
• You're a Viewer. Viewers can see the project and the Preview, but they can't chat with WebDIY. Ask a project Admin for Builder access.
• Your organization is out of credits or on hold. See below.

You'll need Builder or Admin access to the project to edit files. Files are also read-only while WebDIY is answering a message, so wait for it to finish and try again.

It helps to be specific. Name the page, describe what you see and what you'd like instead, and attach a screenshot. If you want to go back to an earlier version, select Revert to this message on a reply, or open Tools, then History.

New messages and publishing wait until there are credits again. In the meantime your published sites stay up, and your projects and files are kept. To get going again, you can:

• wait until midnight UTC, when your plan credits come back up to 100;
• ask an Owner or Admin to buy credits on the Billing page; or
• upgrade your plan.

How credits work has the details.

Your app's computer uses credits while it runs. It starts whenever anyone opens the project, Viewers and people with a preview link included, and it pauses after 10 minutes without activity. Hosting your published sites uses credits too, billed each hour. To see where each credit went, open Usage.

Only a project's Admins can publish, and the lock shows who they are. Ask one of them, or ask for Admin access yourself.

The Publish panel and the Publishing screen both tell you why. For what each reason means and what to do about it, see When a publish can't start and When a publish is blocked or fails.

Your live site only changes when you publish. To send your latest changes there, select Publish, then Publish changes.

The custom domain page has its own Troubleshooting section with the usual fixes.

Search engines don't list sites at website.diy addresses. To show up in search results, connect a custom domain (Pro and Max). If your site is already on a custom domain, give it time: a new site can take days or weeks to appear. Google Search Console shows you what Google has found.

That's expected. Your preview and your published site share one database, so anything you enter while testing in the Preview is real on your live site too. Your app's database explains more.

• Saving a key restarts your app in the Preview, so give it a few seconds.
• Your app's browser code only sees public values whose names start with VITE_.
• Public values are built into your pages when you publish, so after you change one, you'll need to publish again.

See Keys & secrets.

If our email isn't in your inbox, check your spam or promotions folder. You can also select Send new code on the Check your email screen, though there's a short wait between codes. If a code is refused as invalid or expired, ask for a new one. And if the screen says the sign-in has expired, select Start again and enter your email again.

Everything in it is still there and its sites stay up, but nobody can build or publish until an Owner or Admin chooses a plan or pays for the one they picked. You'll find the button for that in the banner at the top.