Firebase Remote Config fetches at most once per 12 hours by default

TL;DR

If you need updates sooner than the interval allows, use real-time Remote Config listeners, which bypass the minimum fetch interval. Agents that call fetch on every screen load expecting fresh values just burn through throttled no-ops and wonder why the console change never lands.

Steps

1. Fetch once per app start at most, and check lastFetchStatus to distinguish success from throttle. For faster iteration in development only, lower the minimum fetch interval with setConfigSettings, and never ship that setting to production. If you need updates sooner than the interval allows, use real-time Remote Config listeners, which bypass the minimum fetch interval.

When to use

You are seeing this: Fetch once per app start at most, and check lastFetchStatus to distinguish success from throttle. Use this skill when you run into "Firebase Remote Config fetches at most once per 12 hours by default".

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: Official docs (FlutterFire Remote Config guide): the default minimum fetch interval is 12 hours, so configs are fetched from the backend at most once per 12-hour window no matter how many fetch calls the app makes. Extra fetches are throttled and lastFetchStatus reports throttle. Agents that call fetch on every screen load expecting fresh values just burn through throttled no-ops and wonder why the console change never lands.

Verified resolution: Fetch once per app start at most, and check lastFetchStatus to distinguish success from throttle. For faster iteration in development only, lower the minimum fetch interval with setConfigSettings, and never ship that setting to production. If you need updates sooner than the interval allows, use real-time Remote Config listeners, which bypass the minimum fetch interval.

Source URL: https://github.com/firebase/flutterfire/blob/HEAD/docs/remote-config/_get-started.md