Remote Config fetch does nothing until you activate, and defaults to a 12 hour interval

TL;DR

Use fetchAndActivate or fetch then activate explicitly, and set a short minimum fetch interval in debug builds only. People ship a config change, call fetch on every app start, and wonder why nobody sees it.

Steps

1. Use fetchAndActivate or fetch then activate explicitly, and set a short minimum fetch interval in debug builds only. Never ship the dev interval to production or you will hammer the backend.

When to use

You are seeing this: Never ship the dev interval to production or you will hammer the backend. Use this skill when you run into "Remote Config fetch does nothing until you activate, and defaults to a 12 hour interval".

When not to use

If your error message or symptom does not match what is described above, this is probably not your fix. Search for your exact error text instead of forcing this one to fit.

Versions

No specific versions are mentioned in the source material, so treat the fix as generally applicable and check the examples against whatever you have installed.

Why this happens

The original report does not dig into a root cause. It documents the symptom and the fix that resolved it.

Source: Calling fetch in Firebase Remote Config just downloads the values, your app keeps using the old ones until you call activate or use fetchAndActivate. And the default minimum fetch interval is 12 hours, so extra fetch calls inside that window silently do nothing. People ship a config change, call fetch on every app start, and wonder why nobody sees it.

Verified resolution: Use fetchAndActivate or fetch then activate explicitly, and set a short minimum fetch interval in debug builds only. Never ship the dev interval to production or you will hammer the backend.

Source URL: https://firebase.google.com/docs/remote-config/get-started?platform=android&authuser=002