Bolt publish failed or the live site will not open

What it means in plain English

Publish is how Bolt puts the project on a live URL. Bolt's troubleshooting page splits the failures it documents: the project is over 100MB, the network is blocking .bolt.host, or the Netlify connection failed. A secure-connection error in the browser is not, by itself, a failed publish.

Likely causes

• The project files are over 100MB. Bolt shows Project is too large to deploy. The maximum allowed size is 100MB. Large images or videos stored in the project are the usual reason.
• The browser shows This site can't provide a secure connection, .bolt.host sent an invalid response, or ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR. Bolt says some networks block .bolt.host even when the site published.
• Publish to Netlify failed. Bolt says you can build and download the project, then deploy that output on Netlify yourself. Bolt calls it Publish. Netlify calls it Deploy.
• You forked or duplicated the project. Bolt says that drops the Netlify connection, and the new site needs the domain pointed at it.
• You are trying to publish a custom-domain site as private. Bolt says sites with a custom domain can only be published publicly. Disconnect the domain first if you need a private publish.

How to fix it, step by step

1. Check the Bolt status page before changing the project. Bolt says to retry after a known incident clears.
2. If the error is the 100MB message, download the project and check the folder size on your computer. Prompt Bolt to delete images and videos the project does not use, or move that media to an external store and point the project at the URL. Publish again only after the folder is under 100MB.
3. If the browser shows ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR on .bolt.host, open the same URL on a phone using mobile data, with any VPN off. If it loads there, Bolt says the site published and the first network is blocking it. Allow .bolt.host on that network, or ask the network admin.
4. If that SSL error appears on every network you try, Bolt says to contact support and include the site URL.
5. If publish to Netlify failed, run the project's build command (usually npm run build), click Download, and follow Netlify's manual deploy steps.
6. If you duplicated the project, reconnect Netlify using Bolt's Netlify integration guide. That creates a new Netlify site. Move the custom domain from the old site to the new one.
7. Use the Publish button in the project. Bolt says prompting the chat to publish spends tokens, and the Publish or Update button does not.

How to check it worked

• Publish finishes and the bolt.host URL loads.
• On a network that blocks .bolt.host, the same URL loads from mobile data.
• A Netlify publish shows a successful deploy on the new site, and the domain points at that site.

After a manual Netlify deploy, a refresh that 404s is the SPA rewrite, not a failed Bolt publish. See Netlify page not found on refresh.

Sources

• https://support.bolt.new/troubleshooting/publish-issues (opens in a new tab)
• https://support.bolt.new/cloud/hosting/publish (opens in a new tab)
• https://support.bolt.new/cloud/hosting (opens in a new tab)