Apps Script default Cloud project creation failing (INTERNAL error)

Google Workspace Developers Q&A
1

Whenever a user in our domain runs a basic Apps Script in a Google Sheet (even a brand-new container-bound script with a trivial function), they get this error:

“We’re sorry, there was an unexpected error while creating the Cloud Platform project. Error code INTERNAL.”

This happens on first run, before the script does anything useful.

I also tested manually:

  • Creating a standard GCP project and then

  • Linking the Apps Script project to that standard project in Project Settings → Change project.

In that case, the script runs correctly. So general project creation and IAM in our org are working; only the automatic creation of default Apps Script Cloud projects is failing.

I’ve checked our org policies at the organization root and on the system-gsuite/apps-script folders. We don’t have any enforced policies like resourcemanager.allowedProjectParent, iam.disableServiceAccountCreation, iam.managed.allowedPolicyMembers, or custom constraints targeting sys-* project IDs that would explain this.

We did previously delete the original system-gsuite/apps-script hierarchy while setting up our landing zone and later recreated folders with the same names. My concern is that the Apps Script backend is still pointing at the original system folder ID, which no longer exists, so every attempt to create a sys-… default project fails internally.

Has anyone faced something like this? Any advice on what my recourse is at this point?

Thanks!

2

Hey,

Hope you’re keeping well.

This behavior usually points to a backend dependency in Apps Script that expects the original system-gsuite/apps-script folder resource IDs to still exist. Simply recreating folders with the same names won’t restore those original IDs, so automatic default project creation fails when the service tries to attach the new project to a non‑existent parent.

Since those system folders are provisioned and managed by Google, they can only be restored by Workspace support. I recommend opening a support case via the Google Admin Console → Support, referencing the missing folder resource IDs and the INTERNAL error.

Thanks and regards,
Taz