My Google Drive disconnects every week

If your Google Drive source stops working every week or so and asks to be connected again, nothing is broken in Cinaura and nothing is wrong with your files. One setting in your Google Cloud project is doing it, and it takes a minute to change.

Why it happens

A new Google Cloud project starts with a publishing status of Testing. Google deliberately expires any sign-in granted by a project in that state after exactly 7 days. When it expires, Cinaura loses its access to your Drive and cannot get it back on its own, so the source goes quiet until you reconnect it. Then the clock starts again.

Setting the project to In production removes the expiry completely. There is no setting inside Cinaura that can hold the connection open, and no amount of retrying will get past it.

The fix

1. Open the Google Cloud Console, signed in with the account you created the project under, and check the project picker at the top is on the project you made for Cinaura.

2. On the Branding page, check cinaura.tv is listed under Authorised domains, adding it if it isn’t, then fill in all three App domain fields:

   Field	Value
   Application home page	https://www.cinaura.tv
   Application privacy policy link	https://www.cinaura.tv/privacy
   Application Terms of Service link	https://www.cinaura.tv/terms

   Save. Google refuses to publish without a home page and a privacy policy link, and the setup wizard never asks for them, so they are usually empty. Leave the app logo blank, because uploading one obliges you to submit the app for verification.

3. Open the Audience page. Find Publishing status. It reads Testing. Click Publish app, then confirm.

4. Check that Publishing status now reads In production.

5. Back on the TV, connect Google Drive again: Cinaura → Settings → Sources → Google Drive.

Google will then show a yellow banner asking you to submit the app for review. Ignore it. Don’t click Back to testing underneath it, which would undo the fix and restart the clock.

Step 5 is the part people miss. Publishing stops the next expiry, but it can’t revive a sign-in that has already run out, so the dead connection has to be replaced once. Your folder selections are kept, and this is the last time you’ll have to do it.

The warning when you reconnect

Google shows a full-page “Google hasn’t verified this app” warning for anything it hasn’t reviewed itself. Click Advanced, then Go to your project name (unsafe).

It’s safe. The app is the Cloud project you created, in your own account, and the only thing it can read is your own Drive. You don’t need Google’s review, and you shouldn’t ask for it: for Drive access they require a paid annual security assessment.

If you get “Error 403: access_denied” instead

Same cause. A message like “The app is currently being tested, and can only be accessed by developer-approved testers” means the project is still in Testing, so Google refuses before it shows a consent screen at all. The fix above covers it. Ignore the message’s advice to contact the developer, which here means you.

Tip

On a Google Workspace account? If you chose Internal as the user type, this isn’t your problem: the 7-day expiry doesn’t apply to internal apps. Get in touch and we’ll look at it.

Setting this up for the first time? The full walkthrough is in Connect Google Drive, where publishing is Step 4.