Unable to add Firebase Dynamic Links to a project using a custom domain

Question

I've created Firebase Dynamic Links in other projects before using the page.link URL prefix (the only option at the time). However that no longer appears to be an option when enabling Dynamic Links for a new project today. It looks like the docs for custom domains were updated today. Unfortunately, while they provide some helpful examples, they don't explain how to resolve my issue in a way that I can understand.

So this message seems to indicate that I need to "Put links under a subpath". It seems to me that adding the /link path prefix here should accomplish that? But after making that change, I get the same error message.

It looks like you already have content served on this Hosting site. Put links under a subpath to avoid conflicts with existing content.

I order to try to work around this, I went to my project and added the suggested Hosting configuration and deployed it.

firebase.json:

{
  "hosting": {
    "public": "dist",
    "ignore": [
      "**/.*"
    ],
    "appAssociation": "AUTO",
    "rewrites": [
      {
        "source": "/link/**",
        "dynamicLinks": true
      },
      {
        "source": "**",
        "destination": "/index.html"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Even after waiting an hour, I keep getting the same error and I don't understand what to do.

Note that I have the rewrite to /index.html because I have an Angular Single Page Application hosted at www.devintent.com.

No matter what I do, I keep getting this error and the Continue button stays disabled. I tried using my naked domain devintent.com instead of www.devintent.com, but that didn't help. I tried using links.devintent.com, but got the same error.

If I manually remove disabled from the Continue button, then I get this error message:

This links to the docs for manually configuring hosting for dynamic links which has some steps that I've already completed. Clicking the Check Again button just takes me back to the same error in the first image above.

Workaround to not use Custom Domains

I'm happy at this time to use a page.link link, I just need to create a Dynamic Link and get unblocked on this task, but I can't figure out any way in the console to allow me to do that either.

Update on this: I figured out that I needed to add the subdomain to the page.link URL. The tooltip says "or a free Google-provided domain (for example, yourapp.page.link)" at the end. This is a little less prominent that I would have liked (as I didn't find it for quite a long time). Using devintent.page.link works for me as a workaround for now.

However, I'm not sure why the Custom Domain configuration didn't work and why it would be the default if there are such complications with projects with existing Hosting configurations and custom domains.

score 58 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 18 '22 at 10:31

58

I had the same issue and got the same error. The problem was that I was redirecting all the routes to index.html. The solution was to restrict the routes to index.html by exclusion.

"rewrites": [
  {
    "source": "/link/**",
    "dynamicLinks": true
  },
  {
    "source": "!/link/**",
    "destination": "/index.html"
  }
]

After deploying the new configuration to Firebase Hosting, I was allowed to use mydomain.example/link as desired.

edited Jun 18 '22 at 10:31

Stephen Ostermiller

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answered Oct 21 '19 at 11:06

Erik Martín Jordán

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1

That was it! Should be stated in the help on firebase when encountering the error really. – oldwizard Oct 23 '19 at 06:59
This is in the docs and is part of the UI wizard when you set this up. – Splaktar Jan 10 '20 at 00:17
What does this ! in !/link/** do? – HixField Mar 29 '20 at 17:48
1

‘!’ symbol works as negation; URLs which NOT (!) begin with (/link/**) are redirected to index.html. – Erik Martín Jordán Mar 30 '20 at 03:16
1

This really helps! Thanks Erik! – damingzi Jul 07 '20 at 04:23
1

What a shame, The best answer is at the bottom. – JIE WANG Apr 17 '21 at 07:51
This should be the accepted answer! If you want to use a domain that is also serving your Hosting site, just modify your firebase.json file to filter out your path as @ErikMartínJordán did here. – Jorge Garcia Mar 23 '22 at 18:36
1

How does this work if you want multiple dynamic link routes that start with different prefixes? Is there a negation (!) + OR syntax? i.e. "source": "!/linka|linkb/**", – mattgabor Jul 13 '22 at 17:40

sha256 · Answer 2 · 2020-07-22T17:03:44.170

32

I had a similar problem with the root (apex) domain. Basically, if the prefix (the apex domain in my case) is a URL that gives 200 status response, it won't be accepted. In my case the there was an index.html file inside the public folder. I renamed it to something else and it worked.

Here's my firebase.json:

{
  "hosting": {
    "public": "public",
    "ignore": [
      "firebase.json",
      "**/.*",
      "**/node_modules/**"
    ],
    "appAssociation": "AUTO",
    "rewrites": [ { "source": "/**", "dynamicLinks": true } ]
  }
}

edited Jul 22 '20 at 17:03

answered Jan 01 '20 at 08:09

sha256

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That helped me A LOT! Thank you so much... Solution: rename `index.html` to something else – AZOM Feb 04 '20 at 15:18
You have saved my life! This answer should be the accepted answer! – dshukertjr Sep 09 '20 at 04:42
3

Don't forget to rename your file back to index.html after setup to avoid 404 error for your website – Joseph Utulu Dec 16 '20 at 12:35
This Really works, you saved me, thank you – John Paul Grefaldo May 13 '21 at 06:25
Thank you! Worked for me. If I change the name of index.html back and deploy, will there be any issues with the dynamic link? – Tapas Mukherjee Jun 01 '21 at 16:32
@TapasMukherjee, I'm not sure! I also wondered about this but never tried. – sha256 Jun 01 '21 at 17:54

score 18 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 02 '21 at 07:12

18

Everything you are doing looks correct with regards to getting your custom domain working. I am wondering if you are using the latest version of firebase-tools (CLI). Custom Domain support for dynamic links was added in version 6.5.0.

Good news is that page.link support still exists but is not as obvious in the new UI flow. The way to get a page.link domain is to start typing your desired subdomain and a suggestion should pop up in the UI. I have included a screenshot to show how this would work.

Adding page link domain image

Hope this helps,

Jeff

edited Sep 02 '21 at 07:12

Gulam Hussain

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answered Mar 15 '19 at 17:18

Jeff Avis

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Oh that's interesting! Thank you, I hadn't noticed `page.link` in that pop up. Also I didn't see anything in [the custom domain docs](https://firebase.google.com/docs/dynamic-links/custom-domains) about needing a certain version fo the Firebase CLI. I was using firebase-tools 6.3.0. I'll give 6.5.0 a shot. – Splaktar Mar 15 '19 at 18:11
1

Deploying to Hosting with firebase-tools `6.5.0` seems to have fixed this! It's odd that the docs don't mention this, nor the Firebase Console, and that the CLI didn't complain when I tried to deploy something incompatible with Firebase CLI `6.3.0`. – Splaktar Mar 15 '19 at 18:13
1

This got me farther, but then I hit this issue: https://twitter.com/Splaktar/status/1106621875755642880?s=19 – Splaktar Mar 15 '19 at 19:10
1

That is not expected and I have pinged the team to see if we can get a quick resolution for you. – Jeff Avis Mar 15 '19 at 20:02
1

I was able to get it to work with my www.devintent.com domain, but not with devintent.com. In the Hosting console, I have a redirect from devintent.com -> www.devintent.com. – Splaktar Mar 15 '19 at 20:27
1

Good to hear. Our team is looking into the other issue and may ping you for more information. – Jeff Avis Mar 15 '19 at 20:55
For me, upgrading my firebase-tools to 6.7.0 from 6.2.2 did not solve the problem sadly. I have even created a new subdomain "links.XXXX.com" with no luck – Chris Apr 20 '19 at 20:53
Hi Chris - might be worth creating a new issue. What error are you encountering while trying to get your links working? – Jeff Avis Apr 22 '19 at 17:14

abegehr · Answer 4 · 2020-03-19T12:59:40.310

For us the issue was that we we're using the default Firebase Hosting site for serving our web-app at all routes ("/**"). Serving our web-app from a different domain that dynamic links is the way it should be for us, since links should not interfere with the web-app.

To serve links from a different domain than our web-app, I created a new site just for links and attached our custom domain to that site. Now we have two Firebase Hosting sites. The first default one for our web-app and the second one for Firebase Dynamic Links.

After this setting up Dynamic Links with a custom domain attached to the second Firebase Hosting site worked flawlessly. See the screenshot for more details:

EDIT1: the web-app's firebase.json as requested by @cocacrave:

{
  "hosting": {
    "public": "public",
    "ignore": [
      "firebase.json",
      "**/.*",
      "**/node_modules/**"
    ],
    "rewrites": [
      {
        "source": "**",
        "function": "nuxtApp"
      }
    ]
  }
}

I've done the same thing but I don't know if something is wrong with my firebase.json config. I try to create the Dynamic Links URL prefix on the subdomain (created just for the links) and I get the big red flag to edit my config. Do you mind updating your answer with the config you used? — cocacrave, Mar 16 '20 at 06:27
This worked like a charm. I didn't need to add anything to my firebase.json. Just creating a new site, then selecting it when creating the DL was good enough. For setting up Auth, I had to manually enter the /__/auth/action path tho, as it did not come up in suggestions. — Chad Mx, Jul 26 '20 at 17:41

NigulasiMa · Answer 5 · 2020-05-31T17:24:52.750

"appAssociation": "AUTO",
"rewrites": [
  {
    "source": "/page/**",
    "destination": "/index.html"
  },
  {
    "source": "/link/**",
    "dynamicLinks": true
  }
]

It works! I guess the error caused by the original config of "source":"**". May be the range is too large? Though doc say "/__/*" have high priority. (https://firebase.google.com/docs/hosting/full-config?authuser=0#hosting_priority_order)

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 08 '20 at 15:09

If you are getting this error with subdomain, this solution worked for me:

{
  "hosting": [
    {
      "target": "app",
      "public": "build",
      "ignore": [
        "firebase.json",
        "**/.*",
        "**/node_modules/**"
      ],
      "appAssociation": "AUTO",
      "rewrites": [
        {
          "source": "/**",
          "destination": "/index.html"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "target": "links",
      "public": "build",
      "ignore": [
        "**"
      ],
      "appAssociation": "AUTO",
      "redirects": [
        {
          "source": "/",
          "destination": "{{your domain}}",
          "type": 302
        }
      ],
      "rewrites": [
        {
          "source": "/**",
          "dynamicLinks": true
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "target": "invite",
      "public": "build",
      "ignore": [
        "**"
      ],
      "redirects": [
        {
          "source": "/",
          "destination": "{{your domain}}",
          "type": 302
        }
      ],
      "appAssociation": "AUTO",
      "rewrites": [
        {
          "source": "/**",
          "dynamicLinks": true
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Unable to add Firebase Dynamic Links to a project using a custom domain

6 Answers6

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