Skip to main content
Most AppBlips issues fall into a handful of categories — preview rendering, API connectivity, AI inside generated apps, and Docker setup. Work through the section that matches your symptom to find a fix.

​
Preview Shows a Blank Screen

A blank preview after a successful generation usually means the generated code contains a syntax or runtime error that prevents it from rendering.Steps to fix:
  1. Open your browser’s developer tools and check the Console tab for error messages.
  2. Look for JavaScript errors or references to undefined variables.
  3. In the AppBlips prompt input, type a follow-up like Fix any JavaScript errors and let AppBlips correct the code.
  4. If the problem persists, try rephrasing your original prompt with more specific instructions about the behavior you want.
Enabling Code view in Settings lets you inspect the raw generated HTML directly in the preview toolbar, which can help you spot issues at a glance.

​
API and Build Errors

An API error during a build almost always points to a misconfigured or invalid AI provider connection.Check the following in your .env file:
  • APPBLIPS_LLM_BASE_URL — must be the full base URL of your AI provider (e.g. https://api.openai.com/v1)
  • APPBLIPS_LLM_API_KEY — must be a valid, active key for that provider
  • APPBLIPS_LLM_MODEL — must be a model name your provider recognizes and your key has access to
Also confirm that your API key has remaining quota and has not been revoked in your provider’s dashboard.
If the build spinner keeps going without producing output, the request likely timed out or the AI provider is responding slowly.Try the following:
  1. Dismiss the current build and try again.
  2. Check your AI provider’s status page for any ongoing outages or elevated latency.
  3. If you have Reasoning effort set to High in Settings, try lowering it — higher reasoning takes longer and is more likely to hit timeout thresholds on slower providers.
You have hit the /api/chat rate limit. By default, AppBlips allows 60 build requests per 300 seconds per user.To fix:
  • Wait for the rate limit window to reset and try again.
  • If you are running a self-hosted instance and need a higher limit, increase APPBLIPS_CHAT_RATE_LIMIT_MAX or APPBLIPS_CHAT_RATE_LIMIT_WINDOW_SECONDS in your .env file and restart the server.
The built-in rate limiter is tracked in memory per server instance. It is intended as a speed bump, not a strict billing cap.

​
AI Inside Generated Apps

The Connect your AI provider dialog only appears in apps that were generated with the AI toggle enabled. If the dialog never shows, the app was most likely built without AI support.Re-generate the app with the AI toggle turned on before submitting your prompt. The toggle is in the build panel, next to the prompt input.
This error means the app was generated without AI enabled. The blip.ai.text() API is only injected when the AI toggle is on at generation time.Turn on the AI toggle and re-generate the app. Existing apps built without AI cannot have it added retroactively — a new generation is required.
In BYOK mode, the generated app calls your AI provider directly from the browser. This means the provider must allow cross-origin requests (CORS) from browser clients.To fix:
  • Verify that your chosen AI provider supports browser CORS requests. OpenAI’s API allows CORS by default.
  • If you are using a self-hosted or proxy endpoint (such as a local Ollama instance), check its CORS configuration and ensure it permits requests from the origin where your app is running.
  • If the provider does not support CORS, switch to a different provider or consider using relay mode in your self-hosted setup.
APPBLIPS_GENERATED_AI_MODE and APPBLIPS_APP_AI_RELAY_URL are baked into the client bundle at build time. Simply restarting the container after changing these variables is not enough — you must rebuild the image.Run the following command to rebuild and restart:
All other variables in .env are read at runtime and only require a container restart.

​
Docker Issues

AppBlips listens on port 3000 by default. If another process is already using that port, the container will fail to start.To fix:
  • Stop the process currently occupying port 3000, then run docker compose up again.
  • Alternatively, set a different port by adding a PORT environment variable to your .env file (e.g. PORT=3001) and update the port mapping in docker-compose.yml to match.
Most environment variables are read at runtime, so a container restart is all you need:
However, APPBLIPS_GENERATED_AI_MODE and APPBLIPS_APP_AI_RELAY_URL are embedded in the client bundle at build time. If you changed either of these, you must rebuild the image:
A plain restart will not pick up changes to build-time variables.
For questions about initial Docker setup and .env configuration, see the self-hosting guide. For general questions about how AppBlips works, visit the FAQ.