Getting 403 Forbidden error when trying to load image from Firebase Storage

Question

I'm using firebase storage to store and load images for users on my android app. All users must be authenticated before using it. Occasionally, some user profile images are not showing and throwing "403 Forbidden" error. Those images were displaying before, I'm not sure why they stop working. i'm using the following rules on my firebase storage:

 service firebase.storage {
   match /b/<storage_address>.appspot.com/o {
    match /{allPaths=**} {
     allow read: if request.auth != null;
     allow write: if request.auth != null;
    }
  }
}

if i change the read rule to allow read; all the images are working properly. This is my display method:

Picasso.Builder builder = new Picasso.Builder(this);
                builder.listener(new Picasso.Listener()
                {
                    @Override
                    public void onImageLoadFailed(Picasso picasso, Uri uri, Exception exception)
                    {
                        exception.printStackTrace();
                    }
                });
                builder.build().load(URL).into(imgView);

The image URL looks something like this:

https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/<storage_address>.appspot.com/o/images%2Fprofile%2Fphoto%2F36805?alt=media&token=e62ec151-3aaf-4e5c-aefb-1b3c93828684

Could it be something to do with the token?

Answer 1

Probably comes too late, but maybe helpful for someone else. I had the same issue, my problem is that filenames in firebase storage are unique. If you upload a new file with the same filename it will override the old one and generate a new token for it, making the old url obsolete. You should generate a unique filename for your uploaded file and then it should be fixed.