By Partly fixable yourself. Often a paused database or an expired key.
- How serious
- High
- Fix it yourself?
- Partly, some steps need a developer
- Typical cost
- $49–$800 one-off check (prices)
- Top rated
- Afterbuild Labs · 10.0/10
What you see. The app loaded fine yesterday, you changed nothing, and now it shows errors, a blank page or will not load.
Why it happens
Something did change, just not in your code. The most common cause for Supabase-backed apps is pausing. Supabase pauses Free plan projects that show low activity over a 7-day period, and a paused database makes every screen that loads data fail. The project can be resumed from the dashboard for up to one year.
Other silent changes: a hosting incident at Lovable, Bolt, Replit or your host, an expired connection between your builder and Supabase, which Lovable surfaces as a Publishing failed banner, an API key or trial that ran out, or a Replit Autoscale deployment restarting, which its docs call normal. A published site is also a snapshot. If someone on your team published or reverted, the live version moved even though your preview looks the same. The error message in the browser console usually names the culprit.
Fix it yourself
- Open the Supabase dashboard. If the project says paused, click Resume project and wait a few minutes, then reload the app.
- Check the status page of your builder and host before touching code. Bolt, Base44 and Supabase all publish incident pages.
- Open the live site, press
F12orCmd+Option+J, and read the red lines in the Console and Network tabs. A 401 or 403 means a key or session problem. A failed third-party call means that service changed. - In Lovable, open the Publish dialog. If it shows Publishing failed with an expired connection, fix the connection and click Try again.
- Check whether a paid API, domain or plan lapsed. Billing emails often land in spam.
- If nothing explains it, redeploy the last known good version from version history and compare.
When to get an engineer
Hire when the console shows errors you cannot read, when the database was paused long enough that data may be stale, or when customers are blocked right now. Send the engineer the console screenshot, the time it broke and anything that expired. A one-off check is $49–$800 and usually finishes in a day. Ongoing care at $100–$5,000 a month includes monitoring, so you learn about outages before customers do. Read works in preview, breaks on the live site.
Top-rated companies
Ranked by our score: published prices, scope of work, AI tools named, timing and a low-risk first step. How we score.
- 1Afterbuild Labs10.0/10Best for: A check before launchFree first step · from $49
- 2Redlab10.0/10Best for: A full rescue by one team that keeps buildingFree first step · from $490
- 3Vibe Code Rescue (Lev Arakelyan)9.0/10Best for: A one-off check and a cleanupFrom $299
Check these
Errors reach you before users do
Add error monitoring and uptime alerts. If you learn about outages from customers, this is missing.
Database backups run automatically and a restore has been tested
Check what your database plan actually includes, then restore a backup into a test project once.
Secrets live in the host's environment settings
Keys belong in environment variables on the server, not in the repository or in front-end code.
Dependencies are current and audited
Run npm audit. Critical advisories in packages you ship should be fixed before launch.
Questions
How do I stop Supabase pausing my project?
Supabase says a few requests a day over the week is usually enough, and paid plans are never paused. Upgrade before launch or keep traffic flowing.
The preview in my builder still works. Why not the live site?
The live site is a snapshot from your last publish, and it uses production settings. A paused database, a missing production secret or an expired key affects only the live version.
Sources: Supabase: Project pausing; Lovable: Publish your project; Replit: Deployment and publishing help; Bolt: Troubleshooting issues.