Account with active billing gets Quota Exceeded error (limit: 0) on Gemini API

Google Cloud Build with AI Generative AI & Foundational Models
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Hello community,

I’m a new Google Cloud user trying to use the Gemini API (embedding-001 model) from a Google Colab notebook. I have already followed all the recommended steps:

  1. I created a project and activated billing (my new user credits are active).
  2. I have enabled the “Vertex AI API” in my project.
  3. I am using an API key generated from the Google AI Studio.

However, every API call fails immediately with a “429 Quota Exceeded” error. The specific error message is: “Quota exceeded for metric: generativeai.googleapis.com/embed_content_free_tier_requests, limit: 0”.

The “limit: 0” strongly suggests my quota is effectively zero, even with an active billing account. I tried to open a technical support case, but my current support plan does not allow it.

Could you please provide some guidance? It seems my account is “stuck” on the free tier quota, and I can’t find a way to resolve this on my own.

Project ID: (PII Removed by Staff)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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UPDATE: Quota Increase was APPROVED, but the 429 Error (limit: 0) still persists.

Hello,

Quick update on this issue. Following the advice from the community and official documentation, I successfully requested a quota increase for the “Embed content input tokens per minute” via the Google Cloud Console.

My request was formally approved a few hours ago, as you can see in this screenshot of the Quotas page:

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image1849×867 154 KB

However, after waiting for the changes to propagate and re-running my script, I am still getting the exact same “429 Quota Exceeded (limit: 0)” error on the very first API call, as shown in this new screenshot:

image
image1366×768 131 KB

This seems to confirm that there is a bug or a backend provisioning issue with my account, as the API server is not respecting the approved quota limits.

Could a Google Staff member or a Community Manager please investigate this discrepancy? The project is completely blocked by this issue.

Project ID: (PII Removed by Staff)

Thank you.