Known issues

This page describes known issues that you might encounter while using Cloud Workstations.

Unable to start workstation due to Compute Engine resource shortages

If Compute Engine is experiencing resource shortages (stockouts) of the machine type specified in your workstation configuration, you might be unable to start your workstation. To address this issue, try one of the following strategies:

  1. Change the machine type in your workstation configuration to a machine type that has available capacity in your region.
  2. Reserve capacity for your selected machine type. Cloud Workstations automatically consumes reservations, or you can configure the service to consume a specific reservation.
  3. Specify additional machine types in your configuration with the boost mode feature. This allows your developers to choose a machine type with capacity in your region when starting the workstation.

Workbench failed to connect to server

This error indicates the editor is unable to establish a WebSocket connection to the base editor. This is usually due to an intermediary proxy or network configuration blocking WebSocket traffic, or blocking traffic to *.cloudworkstations.dev domains.

If you aren't sure how to resolve the traffic issue, contact your network administrator.

Connecting to a stopped workstation

If you are unable to connect to a stopped workstation, review your workstation cluster settings. For Cloud Workstations to automatically restart a stopped workstation when you connect, your workstation cluster must be configured to use the default Google Cloud console launcher. For more information, see Automatically restart stopped workstations.

Disabling the Cloud Workstations API doesn't delete Cloud Workstations resources

Disabling the Cloud Workstations API doesn't delete Cloud Workstations resources. To avoid being billed, you must delete the underlying Cloud Workstations resources.

Environment variables set on the workstation configuration are not set in SSH sessions

Environment variable set at the workstation configuration or workstation level are not set in the SSH sessions by default, and instead require the use of a custom image.

IntelliJ IDEA-based IDEs

The following features of the IntelliJ IDEA-based IDEs extension are not available, due to limitations on JetBrains Gateway:

  • Debug on Kubernetes
  • Debug a locally running Cloud Run service

Google Cloud CLI can't find my command

If the gcloud CLI can't find your command, update to the current version:

gcloud components update

Also, make sure that you use current Cloud Workstations gcloud CLI syntax. For help, see gcloud workstations --help. As noted in the gcloud CLI release levels, alpha and beta commands may change without notice.

Switching from Regional Persistent Disk to Hyperdisk

It is not possible to switch a workstation configuration from Regional Persistent Disk to Hyperdisk after the workstation configuration is created. To switch a workstation's backing home disk, you must create a new configuration using Hyperdisk and then manually clone the workstation to the new configuration.

APT repository GPG key expiration or rotation errors

When you run apt-get update or install packages inside a workstation container, you might encounter GPG key errors, such as KEYEXPIRED or NO_PUBKEY KEY_ID. This occurs when an upstream third-party repository owner (such as Yarn, NodeSource, or Microsoft) updates or rotates their signing key out-of-band.

To update the preinstalled APT repository keys in your container, run the key refresh script:

sudo /google/scripts/refresh-preinstalled-apt-keys.sh

You can also run this script directly in your custom Dockerfile before running apt-get update or apt-get install. For more information, see Update preconfigured Secure APT keys.