I'm new here. I created a space, but it just stays on "Building." Even new spaces aren't loading

John6666
Fri, 27 Feb 2026 22:59:54 +0000

Multiple causes are possible, and other factors may also be involved, so without build logs, nothing can be determined:

What “Building” means on Spaces

On Hugging Face, “Building” is a coarse status that can cover multiple backend phases:

1. Build: install dependencies / build an image

2. Registry (mostly Docker): push/pull the image

3. Scheduling: allocate hardware and start the container

4. Health check: your app must start and bind to the expected port; if it never becomes “healthy,” it may look like it’s still building or it fails after a while (Hugging Face Forums)

So the key is to classify which phase you’re stuck in, using logs.

5-minute triage playbook

0) Confirm it’s not a platform-wide problem (30 seconds)

Check Hugging Face status: Spaces and Spaces Proxy should be “Operational.” (Hugging Peace Status)
If there’s an incident, many users see “Building” loops at the same time and your code changes won’t help.

1) Reproduce with a “known-good” minimal Space (2 minutes)

Create a minimal hello-world Space (e.g., a tiny Gradio demo or template). If a blank/minimal Space also gets stuck, your issue is likely not your repo but infra/queue/account-side (scheduler backlog, proxy, stuck builder). This exact inference is repeatedly used in recent forum triage guidance. (Hugging Face Forums)

2) Use logs to classify the failure (most important)

Open the Space → Logs and check both:

Build logs (dependency install/build steps)

Container/Runtime logs (your app starting/crashing)

This is the standard first step recommended by HF docs and common support replies. (Hugging Face Forums)

Interpret the result (decision tree)

A) Logs are empty / don’t load / show nothing happening

This usually points to infra/queue/scheduler issues rather than your code. Similar reports describe “empty logs” during infra problems and recommend retrying later or escalating. (Hugging Face Forums)

What to do

1. Space Settings → Restart

2. Make a no-op commit (edit README) to force a new build

3. Space Settings → Factory reboot

4. If minimal new Spaces also have empty logs, escalate (see “What to report” below). (Hugging Face Forums)

B) Build says “Build Queued” or runtime shows “Scheduling failure: not enough hardware capacity / Unable to schedule”

That’s a capacity/scheduler bottleneck (common at peak times or for certain hardware). (Hugging Face Forums)

What to do

Retry later (queue clears), or switch to a different hardware tier if possible.

Duplicating/recreating sometimes lands you on a different worker (works as a workaround in several “permanently building” reports). (Hugging Face Forums)

C) Build fails with registry errors like spaces-registry… 401 Unauthorized

This is typically HF registry/infra/auth, not your app code, and is tracked in issues and forum posts. (GitHub)

What to do

Retry later; if persistent, report it with logs (see below) and reference that it’s a registry auth failure.

D) After ~30 minutes you get: “Launch timed out, space was not healthy after 30 min”

This means the container started, but HF never saw a healthy web service (usually wrong host/port, app stuck during startup, or server never comes up). HF staff explicitly describe the expectation: your service must bind to the exposed port within the health timeout. (Hugging Face Forums)

Common fixes

Bind to 0.0.0.0, not 127.0.0.1 (especially for Flask/FastAPI/custom servers). Forum replies repeatedly show this as the fix. (Hugging Face Forums)

Port mismatch:

For Docker Spaces, default exposed port is 7860 unless you set app_port in README YAML. (Hugging Face)

For Streamlit, the SDK expects Streamlit conventions (port mismatch is a common pitfall). (Hugging Face Forums)

App doing heavy work at startup (large downloads/installs) → move to build step / cache, or slim startup.

E) Build succeeds, but container logs show crashes (imports, missing env vars, etc.)

Then it’s your app/runtime configuration. Common culprits:

Missing Secrets/Variables

Wrong README YAML (sdk, app_file, etc.)—the YAML reference is the canonical source. (Hugging Face)

OS packages: use packages.txt for apt dependencies (Gradio/Streamlit SDKs) and requirements.txt for Python deps. (Hugging Face Forums)

“Even new Spaces aren’t loading” — what that usually implies

If a fresh hello-world Space also stays on “Building,” the most likely buckets are:

Platform-side (Spaces/Spaces Proxy/infra backlog) (Hugging Peace Status)

Account-wide scheduling/build issues (queue or stuck builder) (Hugging Face Forums)

In that situation, don’t spend time rewriting your app: focus on logs + minimal reproduction + reporting.

What to collect before posting for help (or contacting support)

Include:

Space URL(s)

Whether a minimal blank Space reproduces

Build log tail + first runtime error from container logs

Timestamp and (if you see it) any backend trace identifier (some restart errors show a request/trace ID that staff can use). (Hugging Face Forums)