Studio takes a while to open
Why Supabase Studio shows "Starting Supabase Studio…" for about 20 seconds on SupaHost, why it stops after 30 minutes idle, and what expired Studio links mean.
What you see
You click Open Studio and get a plain page that says:
Starting Supabase Studio…
This takes about 20 seconds the first time. The page reloads by itself.
Or you land back on the Database tab with one of these notices:
That Studio link expired or was already used. Open Studio again below.
Your Studio session ended. Open Studio again below.
Why it happens
Studio starts on demand. Each project has its own Studio, and it uses a fair amount of memory (up to 768 MB). Instead of keeping one running for every project all the time, SupaHost starts a project's Studio when you open it and stops it after 30 minutes without requests. That memory goes back to your projects' databases and APIs. The first visit after a stop takes about 20 seconds while the container starts. After that, Studio is as fast as usual.
Links are single-use and short-lived. Open Studio creates a signed sign-in link that works once and expires after one minute. If you bookmark the address it redirects to, or reload an old tab after the link was used, you'll see the "expired or was already used" notice.
Sessions last 12 hours. Once you're in, a cookie keeps you signed in to that project's Studio for 12 hours. After that, the "session ended" notice asks you to open it again.
How to fix it
- Go to Dashboard → your project → Database tab and click Open Studio (or use Studio in the project header).
- If you see "Starting Supabase Studio…", wait. The page reloads every few seconds and opens Studio when it's ready.
- If you get an expired-link notice, click Open Studio again. Don't reuse old links or bookmarks.
- If you switch projects, open Studio from that project's page. A session covers one project.
- If Studio still doesn't load after a minute or two, check your instance is healthy (Dashboard → Instance). If the instance is short on memory, see High memory or swap usage.
On SupaHost
- Only the instance owner can open Studio. Invited team members don't get the button. They can ask the owner, or work with the database through an AI agent over MCP.
- Studio's address is
https://<project>.studio.<instance>.supahost.space, and it only works after signing in through the dashboard. - Studio signs in to your database as
postgres, so the SQL editor has the same rights you'd have on Supabase Cloud. - Studio's Logs and Reports pages aren't available. Edge Functions and Cron have their own tabs in the SupaHost dashboard.
- Starting and stopping Studio doesn't affect your project's API, Auth, Storage or Realtime. They keep running.