Gemini Live API — gemini-2.5-flash-native-audio-preview-12-2025 returns code=1011 mid-turn at ~80% rate (started 2026-05-27)

Gemini API
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1

Gemini Live API — gemini-2.5-flash-native-audio-latest / preview-12-2025 returns code=1011 mid-turn at ~80-90% rate (started 2026-05-27 ~17:00 UTC)

Endpoint: wss://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/ws/google.ai.generativelanguage.v1beta.GenerativeService.BidiGenerateContent
Model: gemini-2.5-flash-native-audio-latest (and gemini-2.5-flash-native-audio-preview-12-2025)
SDK: Direct WebSocket, no SDK layer
Severity: Production users seeing WebSocket disconnects on simple text turns.

Summary

Live API turns on gemini-2.5-flash-native-audio-latest and the underlying preview-12-2025 close the WebSocket with code=1011, reason="Internal error encountered." at ~80-90% rate. Both clientContent (text) and realtimeInput.audio (audio) request paths are affected. Behavior started 2026-05-27 between 17:11 and 18:00 UTC and has been continuous since.

Same setup payload bytes against gemini-2.5-flash-native-audio-preview-09-2025 is 100% clean (N=20 text, N=5 audio).

Timeline

Window (UTC) Observation
Through 2026-05-27 17:11 ~1% 1011 rate over ~1500 turns. Recovered by single retry with sessionResumption.handle.
2026-05-27 ~18:00 → present Same client, same payload, same key — 80-90% 1011 rate per turn.

Reproduction

Standalone Node.js + ws, no SDK. Production setup payload (model, generationConfig, contextWindowCompression, sessionResumption, realtimeInputConfig, systemInstruction, tools, audio transcription) + one clientContent turn:

import WebSocket from 'ws';

const URL = `wss://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/ws/google.ai.generativelanguage.v1beta.GenerativeService.BidiGenerateContent?key=${process.env.GEMINI_API_KEY}`;
const MODEL = process.env.MODEL || 'gemini-2.5-flash-native-audio-latest';

const ws = new WebSocket(URL);
ws.on('open', () => {
  ws.send(JSON.stringify({
    setup: {
      model: `models/${MODEL}`,
      generationConfig: {
        responseModalities: ['AUDIO'],
        speechConfig: { voiceConfig: { prebuiltVoiceConfig: { voiceName: 'Puck' } } },
        thinkingConfig: { thinkingBudget: 0 },
      },
      contextWindowCompression: { triggerTokens: 25000, slidingWindow: { targetTokens: 12500 } },
      sessionResumption: { handle: null },
      realtimeInputConfig: { automaticActivityDetection: { disabled: true } },
      systemInstruction: { parts: [{ text: 'You are a helpful assistant.' }] },
      inputAudioTranscription: {},
      outputAudioTranscription: {},
    },
  }));
});
ws.on('message', (data) => {
  const msg = JSON.parse(data.toString());
  if (msg.setupComplete) {
    ws.send(JSON.stringify({
      clientContent: {
        turns: [{ role: 'user', parts: [{ text: 'What is the SSI resource limit?' }] }],
        turnComplete: true,
      },
    }));
  }
});
ws.on('close', (code, reason) => console.log(`closed code=${code} reason="${reason}"`));

Results (2026-05-27 17:42 UTC, N=10):

Model OK 1011
gemini-2.5-flash-native-audio-latest 1/10 9/10
gemini-2.5-flash-native-audio-preview-12-2025 1/5 4/5
gemini-2.5-flash-native-audio-preview-09-2025 20/20 0/20

Audio-input path (same setup payload, realtimeInput.audio PCM 16kHz s16le, activityStart/activityEnd) on -latest: 4/5 → 1011, same reason="Internal error encountered." On 09-2025: 5/5 OK.

Wire-level pattern

Failure case (typical):

client → setup
server → setupComplete                                                          (≈200-400ms)
client → clientContent { turns: [...], turnComplete: true }
server → sessionResumptionUpdate { }                                            (empty — no newHandle)
server → close code=1011 "Internal error encountered."                          (≈200-3000ms later)

Success case (rare on -latest, always on 09-2025):

... setupComplete → clientContent →
server → sessionResumptionUpdate { } → toolCall → toolResponse → serverContent.modelTurn (audio) → ... → turnComplete

Failure point is always between clientContent (or realtimeInput.audio) and the first serverContent.modelTurn. No content emitted before the close.

Audio path failure on -latest is identical except clientContent is replaced by realtimeInput.audio chunks + activityEnd.

What we need

  1. Confirmation of the regression in gemini-2.5-flash-native-audio-preview-12-2025.
  2. Either restore reliability on 12-2025, or repoint the gemini-2.5-flash-native-audio-latest alias to a backend that is not failing.

Environment

  • Endpoint: generativelanguage.googleapis.com/ws/.../BidiGenerateContent (v1beta)
  • Auth: API key (?key=...)
  • Region: default routing
  • Live API quota (per AI Studio): 8/Unlimited RPM, 12K/1M TPM, 140/Unlimited RPD — well under limits
  • Reproduced from two US-West network egress points (developer machine + cloud deployment)
2

Im facing the same issue with the same model . I can do a couple turns of a conversation before I get the same error: Gemini Connection Closed: Internal error encountered.

3

Seems like it recovered but still pretty worrying how fragile the entire ecosystem is and no real communication from devs.