Duplicate feature in V0 broken - forking an incomplete application - v0

Hey there

I've been having a really difficult issue lately where I'm trying to fork my application build. However, when i do so, the forked version is always missing a key component or is just broken in some way, and not the latest version of the app I was working on.

For example, If i duplicate the chat to fork my application, the new version would be missing an image in the hero, or would ask for an environment variable that isn't even in the codebase?

The weird thing is, when I compare the codebase, it looks to be the same, so I don't know what the issue is!

Any help would be appreciated, have been facing this over the last couple of days.

Do you have chat links with examples? This would help our product team to find the bugs and ship fixes

Hey Pauline, please see below for the link to the last working branch:

https://v0.app/chat/version-13-prime-version-3xcNbet70Iw?ref=RWJLIM

and then this link to the broken branch when i've tried to duplicate:

https://v0.app/chat/version-13-prime-version-2-RZ9OjOpqOIf?ref=RWJLIM

Hey daaviddd,

I forked your project (Version 13 --- prime version 2) to take a look, and scanned every process.env.* reference in the codebase. The env vars v0 is asking for in the fork are all legitimately used --- nothing phantom. Specifically:

Firebase (8 keys, used in lib/firebase.ts): NEXT_PUBLIC_FIREBASE_API_KEY, AUTH_DOMAIN, DATABASE_URL, PROJECT_ID, STORAGE_BUCKET, MESSAGING_SENDER_ID, APP_ID, MEASUREMENT_ID
Google Places (GOOGLE_PLACES_API_KEY) --- app/api/places/autocomplete/route.ts
Mailtrap (MAILTRAP_API_TOKEN) --- app/actions/send-notification-email.tsx, app/api/send-email/route.ts
NEXT_PUBLIC_BASE_URL --- app/runs/[id]/page.tsx

The reason it feels broken after a fork is that environment variables don't carry over to the new project automatically. The code copies fine, but the fork is its own Vercel project with empty Vars. So when the preview boots, Firebase fails to initialize, the hero/storage assets won't load, and v0 (correctly) prompts you to add the missing keys.

Fix:

Open the forked chat -> Settings (top right) -> Vars
Paste in the same values from your original project (Firebase config from the Firebase console, plus the Places / Mailtrap / Base URL keys)
Reload the preview

That should bring the fork back to parity with the source. The "missing image in the hero" symptom is usually the same root cause --- NEXT_PUBLIC_FIREBASE_STORAGE_BUCKET is empty, so the image URL never resolves.

Worth double-checking with the v0 team to confirm, but this matches what I saw in your codebase.

Hope this helps.

Hey Sharan

Thanks for having a look at this and doing your investigation. I agree that those environment variables are in the codebase, but i don't know why they aren't being read from the shared environment variables (I have them stored there). Additionally, I opened up the chat today and the missing variables error is no longer being thrown. Currently waiting for vercel support to have a look at this.