--- title: "Your Lovable app works in the editor but not on the live link" description: "Preview looks perfect, live link is blank or stale? Here's why they differ and the order to check things in before you spend another credit." url: https://www.fomio.ai/blog/your-lovable-app-works-in-the-editor-but-not-on-the-live-link published: 2026-08-22T18:00:00.447+00:00 updated: 2026-08-22T18:00:00.447+00:00 topic: breakage-by-platform words: 1731 --- # Your Lovable app works in the editor but not on the live link The preview and the published link are two different apps — here's how to tell which one is actually broken, in the order worth checking. **In short:** - The preview shows your project right now; the live link shows a copy taken the last time you hit Publish. - Republishing fixes most of these. If it doesn't, your browser or your domain is probably showing you a saved copy. - A blank live page usually means settings or keys that exist in the editor never made it to where the app now lives. - The AI can only see the preview, so asking it to fix a live-only fault burns credits and changes nothing. ### Why does my Lovable app work in preview but not on the live link? Because they are two different copies. The preview is your project as it stands this second. The live link is a snapshot taken the last time you published, and changes are not pushed live automatically. Hit Publish again and reload the live link — that alone fixes it for most people. You made a change. You watched it work in the preview panel, right there next to the chat. Then you opened your real link on your phone and it's the old version. Or a white screen. Or the sign-in button just spins. Nothing is wrong with you. This is the most common Lovable confusion, and Lovable's own documentation says the cause plainly: each publish deploys a snapshot, only the current version goes live, and if you don't see recent changes you need to publish again.[^1] So go do that first. The Publish button sits top right of the editor, next to Share. Then reload your live link. If that fixed it, you're done and the rest of this page isn't your problem. ## I republished and it still shows the old version This is almost always one of two kinds of saved copy. Your own browser keeps a copy of your site so it loads faster, and it will happily show you yesterday's. That's the cruellest version, because your users see the new site and you don't. Test it honestly: open the link in a private window, or on your phone with wifi off. If it looks right there, your site is fine and your browser was lying to you. If you connected your own domain name, there's a second layer of saved copies between your app and the world. Lovable's FAQ says published changes normally appear within a few minutes, but that a custom domain adds delay from network and domain-system caching, and suggests clearing your browser cache to see updates sooner.[^2] Give it fifteen minutes before you panic-click. It might also not be you. Lovable's status page has recorded an incident where published projects and preview links served stale versions because of a caching problem on their side.[^3] Checking status.lovable.dev before your fourth republish is two well-spent seconds. ## Why is my published Lovable site just a white page? A blank white page means the page loaded and then the app fell over before it could draw anything. The preview doesn't show this because the preview runs somewhere friendlier, with things already switched on that the live copy has to go and fetch for itself. You are not the first. Someone posted on Lovable's public feedback board that their preview looked perfect while their published address was blank, after roughly 75 messages to the AI trying to fix it.[^4] Remember that number if you're currently in a loop. > **The AI can only see the preview** — Describing your broken live page to the chat and asking it to try again is how you spend a day and a lot of credits fixing nothing. It has no view of the published copy. Two causes account for most white-on-live pages. The first: your app's keys don't exist where it now lives. If you exported the project and hosted it elsewhere, those settings didn't travel with the code — the editor still has them, the live copy asks for something it was never given and stops.[^6] The second is the same shape: something the app depends on is only reachable from the editor. A database rule, a connected service, or a function that was never deployed to the project your live app is actually talking to. ## Why does sign-in work in preview but not on the live link? Your login system is deliberately paranoid. It will only send a person back to an address it has been explicitly told is yours, and your preview address and your live address are different addresses.[^7] If only the preview address was ever added to the allowed list, logging in from the live site sends people into nothing — a blank page, a loop, or a bounce back to localhost. The fix lives in your Supabase project settings, not in Lovable. Add your live address as the site address and to the list of allowed return addresses. Do it for your .lovable.app link and your custom domain if you have both. Password resets and Google sign-in read the same list. ## My domain shows someone else's site — what happened? When you pointed your own domain at Lovable you added two records at your registrar: one pointing at Lovable's address, one for verification. Those can take from a few minutes to a few hours to take effect.[^5] If it later goes strange, Lovable's guidance for a down published site is to check your domain records still point to Lovable and to try your preview link — if the preview loads, the app is alive and the domain is the broken part.[^8] One person on the feedback board reported unrelated sites appearing on their domain hours after publishing, so this failure is real and you didn't cause it. ## What order should I check things in? 1. **Republish, then reload** — The live link only moves when you publish. Do this before anything else. 2. **Open it in a private window or on mobile data** — If it looks correct there, your site is fine and your browser was showing you an old copy. 3. **Check status.lovable.dev** — Rule out their bad day before you spend money on your own. 4. **Preview loads but your own domain doesn't** — Go and look at your domain records at the registrar. 5. **Blank on live only** — Look for settings and keys that exist in the editor and were never added where the app is hosted. 6. **Sign-in broken on live only** — Add your live address to the allowed return addresses in Supabase. Stop asking the chat to fix it until you've done the first three. If you do go back to the chat afterwards, give it what it cannot see rather than asking it to guess. **Paste this into Lovable** ```text My published site is blank while the preview works. Do not change the UI. List every setting, key or connected service this app needs at runtime, and tell me exactly where each one has to be set for the published version — not the editor. Then show me how to confirm each is present. ``` ## How do I find out before a customer does? Notice how you learned about this. You opened your own app, or a user emailed you, or a friend sent a screenshot with no message attached. Everything above is a repair, and repairs start late. The gap is that a Lovable app can be broken on the live link for hours while the editor sits there looking perfect, because the only thing checking that link is a person who happens to open it. That's the problem Fomio was built for. You paste your live link — the real one your users type — and it watches it from outside, then emails you when it stops working. It reports one of three things: Working, Having trouble, or Down. There's nothing to set up beyond the link, and when something breaks it says in plain English what likely went wrong. On the paid plans it writes the prompt to paste straight back into Lovable, which matters here specifically, because the hard part of a live-only fault is explaining a thing the AI cannot see. The edges, straight: the free plan watches one app, checks every five minutes, keeps a week of history, and needs no card. Builder watches three, checks every minute, keeps a month, and includes the fix prompts. Pro watches fifteen, keeps a year, and gives your users a status page. Current prices are at fomio.ai/pricing. It tells you by email — not SMS, WhatsApp or Discord. If you need a phone call at 3am, that isn't this. So: republish, then check the live link in a private window. If that fixes it, close this tab and go back to building. If it doesn't, work down the list in order. Either way, put something outside your editor watching the live link, so next time you hear it from a machine and not from a customer. ## Questions people also ask ### Does Lovable publish my changes automatically? No. Lovable's documentation states that publishing deploys a snapshot of your project, that only the current version goes live, and that changes are not pushed to the live site automatically. Every change you want people to see needs another publish. This is why the preview and the live link drift apart so easily — the preview updates as you build, and the published copy stays frozen at whatever it was the last time you clicked the button. ### How long should I wait after publishing? Lovable's FAQ says published changes normally go live within a few minutes. On a custom domain it can take longer, because saved copies in the network and the domain system add delay, and the FAQ suggests clearing your browser cache to see updates sooner. Fifteen minutes is a fair wait before you assume something is wrong. Republishing repeatedly during that window doesn't speed anything up. ### Can I ask the AI to fix the live version? Not usefully, on its own. The chat can see your project as it stands in the editor, not the published copy or the settings wherever that copy is hosted. One person on the feedback board spent roughly 75 messages on a blank published page before asking whether it was known. If you do use the chat, describe the exact difference between the two environments and ask it what has to exist in production, rather than asking it to try again. ### Is it my app or is it Lovable? Check status.lovable.dev first. There has been at least one recorded incident where published projects and preview links served an older version because of a caching problem on Lovable's side. If the status page is clear, try your preview link: if the preview loads but your own domain doesn't, the app is running and the domain is the broken part. That single test separates most of these problems in seconds. ## Sources [^1]: Publish your Lovable project — Lovable Documentation. https://docs.lovable.dev/features/publish [^2]: How long does it take for published changes to go live? — Lovable FAQ. https://lovable.dev/faq/deployment/troubleshooting/publish-update-delay [^3]: Some published projects and deployed preview links are not reflecting latest version — Lovable Status. https://status.lovable.dev/incidents/01JT5KY19YSK02PJ1YQDMH66VK [^4]: Can see the site in Preview but wasted >3 hrs... to a published "white site" — Lovable feedback board. https://feedback.lovable.dev/p/can-see-the-site-in-preview-but-wasted-greater3-hrs [^5]: Setting Up Custom Domains in Lovable: Subdomain Design & A+TXT Records — DEV Community. https://dev.to/tielec-takashi/setting-up-custom-domains-in-lovable-subdomain-design-atxt-records-3ee5 [^6]: Lovable Preview Works but Live Breaks — Hire Lovable Xperts. https://www.hirelovableexperts.com/deploy/lovable-deployment-errors [^7]: Lovable App Works in Preview but Not Live — Ai Website Repair. https://aiwebsiterepair.com/lovable-app-preview-not-working-live/ [^8]: My published site is down and users can't access it. — Lovable FAQ. https://lovable.dev/faq/deployment/troubleshooting/published-site-down