Test Mode & Workarounds

UPDATE Jul 30 - Our engineering team has pushed a fix. I encourage you to try out test mode again, and please let me know if this doesn't work for you so we can look into it. Thank you to everyone who brought this issue up. For more details about why this issue occurred, see the post from Alex Greaves, our CTO: https://community.flutterflow.io/c/whats-new-in-flutterflow/post/an-apology-update-on-test-mode-9L4EgvDTuzpI6VK

UPDATE July 28 - Our engineering team is still investigating long-term improvements to test mode. In the meantime, workarounds include run mode, local run, or downloading your code.

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Hello all, our team is currently aware of an ongoing issue with Test Mode failing / taking a long time to load from time-to-time. Some things I've seen work for people include trying different browsers, and doing a hard refresh (Ctrl + Shift + R Cmd + Shift + R on Mac).

Our engineering team is working on a fix and also working on a more long-term solution, but in the meantime I wanted to share some alternatives to Test Mode.

Run Mode

Run Mode builds a web-version of your app, identical to what is run on Test Mode. You can then interact with your app in a web browser. The main differences to test mode: there is no hot-reload so you will need to create a new run mode link when you want to test new changes, and there is no debug panel. With run-mode, there is no expiration and you can also share the link with members of your team. You can learn more about Run Mode here: https://docs.flutterflow.io/testing/run-your-app/

Local Run

With local run, you can test your app on a device simulator. You'll first need to download the FlutterFlow desktop app, and then set up the software needed to run your project locally.

Here is the documentation on how to set up Local Run: https://docs.flutterflow.io/testing/local-run/

And here is a YouTube tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9NpYncXC_U

VSCode Extension / Downloading your Code

Another way to test your project locally is to download your code through the VSCode extension or the FlutterFlow CLI, which can be found in the developer menu.

Here is the documentation on how to use the VSCode extension: https://docs.flutterflow.io/concepts/custom-code/vscode-extension/

As well as a YouTube tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Q9LYDMGNo

Here is a 6-min walkthrough on how I use these tools (local run & VSCode extension & downloading code): https://www.loom.com/share/cfc2f5d60aed4b9c87dbfb3b198cb793?sid=3c2ac2bb-f29c-4093-a212-e3d34390bbfc

I apologize on behalf of your team for the inconvenience and will update you all on the status of a fix. If you have any questions, please let me know!