Recent Instability in Gemini Models (Is this the Downfall of Gemini API?)

Gemini API
1

For the past few weeks, the Gemini API (specifically gemini-2.5-pro) has been completely unreliable for my application. Initially, I thought these issues were temporary, but they persist, suggesting a possible change in the Gemini API infrastructure or behavior.

My setup, which was previously working fine with the same prompts and keys, then all of the sudden now fails inconsistently across multiple API calls, with some succeeding and others returning empty responses or 500 errors. I’m seeking assistance to diagnose and resolve this.

Issue Description

The API intermittently returns:

  1. Empty responses: response.text is undefined, with candidates[0].content: {role: “model”} but no parts array
  2. HTTP 500 errors: “An internal error has occurred. Please retry or report…”, indicating server-side issues.
  • Response structure:
{
  "candidates": [{"content": {"role": "model"}, "finishReason": "STOP", "index": 0}],
  "modelVersion": "gemini-2.5-pro",
  "usageMetadata": {
    "promptTokenCount": 20,
    "totalTokenCount": 183,
    "thoughtsTokenCount": 163
  }
}

:inbox_tray: RAW RESPONSE (3388ms):
Response object keys: [ ‘candidates’, ‘modelVersion’, ‘usageMetadata’ ]
Full response: {
“candidates”: [
{
“content”: {
“role”: “model”
},
“finishReason”: “STOP”,
“index”: 0
}
],
“modelVersion”: “gemini-2.5-pro”,
“usageMetadata”: {
“promptTokenCount”: 20,
“totalTokenCount”: 183,
“promptTokensDetails”: [
{
“modality”: “TEXT”,
“tokenCount”: 20
}
],
“thoughtsTokenCount”: 163
}
}

:magnifying_glass_tilted_left: RESPONSE ANALYSIS:
response.text: undefined = “undefined”
response.candidates: true (length: 1)
candidates[0] keys: [ ‘content’, ‘finishReason’, ‘index’ ]
candidates[0].content: { role: ‘model’ }
candidates[0].finishReason: “STOP”

what is going on?

1 Like
2

@steven_ernest ,

welcome to the community.

Thank you for reporting this. The engineering team is aware of the empty response issue and is actively working on a fix. We will keep you updated as the fix is identified and rolled out.

1 Like
4

it’s not empty, it’s completely broken with 500 internal server error from google. what’s the ETA for the fix? this is huge damage for google’s reputation as an API provider

6

How long is this going to take?, they’ve been saying they are working on it for weeks,

7

it will likely take alot of time to fix save yourself the hastle and just use vertex ai it dosent have any problems

8

I have a feeling that all these people who report empty output are likely using free account. Because since today morning I don’t see any issue at all with Gemini 2.5 pro with audio processing.