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Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

ankursethi.com

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Re: Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

#211

Post by gikkman »

jacquesm wrote: post #196
rozap wrote: post #177

I wasted several hours this week going around in the exact same circles. We have a billing account, but kept hitting a gemini quota. Fine. But then on the quota page, every quota said 0% usage. And our bill was like $5. Some docs said check AI studio, but then the "import project from google cloud to AI studio" button kept silently failing. This was a requests per minute quota, which was set at 15 (not a whole lot...…

For the last decade or so I get a second $0.85 monthly bill from google. Nobody at google knows why, but they recommend to leave it because who knows what could be disabled if I block those payments. Interesting detail here is that this is on a bank account that we stopped using in 2017, so the only reason we are keeping that account alive is for these stupid google payments. In the cloud environment there is an invo…

I recently got an email saying a project I got is at the risk of being disabled because my payment information is invalid. But the card I got registered for it is the same I've had the last two years, and it's still valid cause I used it yesterday. Also, there is no amount due as far as I can tell. I haven't done anything with the project for 6 month, it's just sitting there. No API usage, nothing.

So I got no idea what to do to address it. I feel my best option is wait for it to get disabled and try to address it afterwards.

Re: Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

#212

Post by paganel »

prodigycorp wrote: post #204
Ozzie_osman wrote: post #145

I was recently (vibe)-coding some games with my kid, and we wanted some basic text-to-speech functionality. We tested Google's Gemini models in-browser, and they worked great, so we figured we'd add them to the app. Some fun learnings: 1. You can access those models via three APIs: the Gemini API (which it turns out is only for prototyping and returned errors 30% of the time), the Vertex API (much more stable but lac…

Also, usage and billing takes a DAY to update. On top of that, there are no billing caps or credit-based billing. They put the entire burden on users not to ensure that they don't have a mega bill.

> there are no billing caps or credit-based billing.

Was really curious about that when I saw this in the posted article:

> I had some spare cash to burn on this experiment,

Hopefully the article's author is fully aware of the real risk of giving Alphabet his CC details on a project which has no billing caps.

Re: Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

#213

Post by hobofan »

CSMastermind wrote: post #147
Ozzie_osman wrote: post #145

I was recently (vibe)-coding some games with my kid, and we wanted some basic text-to-speech functionality. We tested Google's Gemini models in-browser, and they worked great, so we figured we'd add them to the app. Some fun learnings: 1. You can access those models via three APIs: the Gemini API (which it turns out is only for prototyping and returned errors 30% of the time), the Vertex API (much more stable but lac…

Some other fun things you'll find: - The models perform differently when called via the API vs in the Gemini UI. - The Gemini API will randomly fail about 1% of the time, retry logic is basically mandatory. - API performance is heavily influenced by the whims of the Google we've observed spreads between 30 seconds and 4 minutes for the same query depending on how Google is feeling that day.

> The Gemini API will randomly fail about 1% of the time, retry logic is basically mandatory.

That is sadly true across the board for AI inference API providers. OpenAI and Anthropic API stability usually suffers around launch events. Azure OpenAI/Foundry serving regularly has 500 errors for certain time periods.

For any production feature with high uptime guarantees I would right now strongly advise for picking a model you can get from multiple providers and having failover between clouds.

Re: Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

#214

Post by kyrra »

jacquesm wrote: post #196
rozap wrote: post #177

I wasted several hours this week going around in the exact same circles. We have a billing account, but kept hitting a gemini quota. Fine. But then on the quota page, every quota said 0% usage. And our bill was like $5. Some docs said check AI studio, but then the "import project from google cloud to AI studio" button kept silently failing. This was a requests per minute quota, which was set at 15 (not a whole lot...…

For the last decade or so I get a second $0.85 monthly bill from google. Nobody at google knows why, but they recommend to leave it because who knows what could be disabled if I block those payments. Interesting detail here is that this is on a bank account that we stopped using in 2017, so the only reason we are keeping that account alive is for these stupid google payments. In the cloud environment there is an invo…

Chargebacks or disputes will lock your account, so definitely stay away from that path.

But just closing the bank account will stop auto billing (it's considered a decline). So if you closed the account, it would just stop paying for whatever it is, and then cloud may lock the gcp account until it's paid. (I'm not 100% sure what cloud does with unpaid invoices).

Re: Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

#215

Post by drak0n1c »

levocardia wrote: post #108

Add me to the list of "saw nano banana pro, attempted to get an API key for like 5min, failed and gave up." Maybe I am a dummy (quite possible) but I have seen many smart people similarly flummoxed! You can walk into a McDonalds without being able to read, write, or speak English, and the order touchscreen UI is so good (er, "good") that you can successfully order a hamburger in about 60 seconds. Why can't Google (of…

I use a third party API aggregator/forwarder (VeniceAI) for this reason.

Re: Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

#216

Post by jwr »

I also tried to make Gemini work with opencode and after spending about an hour in various panels, billing settings, setting up access groups, project groups, and other paraphernalia, gave up. There is Google Cloud, Vertex AI, Oauth which works or does not depending on whatever, all the "groups" and other crap I don't need, overall I just failed.

Claude code just works.

Re: Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

#218

Post by Mashimo »

the_snooze wrote: post #95
Workaccount2 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number one rule of business that should just be passively reiterated to everyone working in any type of transactional field: 1. Never make it hard for people to give you money.

Parking apps don’t seem to care much for that. They know you’ll jump through their shoddy UIs and data collection because they have a local monopoly. Often with physical payment kiosks removed and replaced with “download our shitty app!” notices.

Huh, where I live you often can use many different parking apps, and the one i tried is very simple and user friendly.

Start app, wait for gps, turn time wheel, press start.

Re: Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

#219

Post by ashwindharne »

specproc wrote: post #178
CSMastermind wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some other fun things you'll find: - The models perform differently when called via the API vs in the Gemini UI. - The Gemini API will randomly fail about 1% of the time, retry logic is basically mandatory. - API performance is heavily influenced by the whims of the Google we've observed spreads between 30 seconds and 4 minutes for the same query depending on how Google is feeling that day.

I have also had some super weird stuff in my output (2.5-flash). I'm passing docs for bulk inference via Vertex, and a small number of returned results will include gibberish in Japanese.

I get this a lot too, have made most of the Gemini models essentially unusable for agent-esque tasks. I tested with 2.5 pro and it still sometimes devolved into random gibberish pretty frequently.

Re: Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

#220

Post by phromo »

I had a similar experience. However I gave up before being able to pay. Repeated the story two or three times. This was work for a medium sized Corp and in the end we didn't even give gemini a chance because of this (performance was sufficiently good with competing providers) . Really hope they up their UX.
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