Troubleshoot Common Problems with Google Maps API Keys

Troubleshooting Common Problems

If your map isn’t displaying correctly and/or there’s an overlay on your map that says ‘For development purposes only’, here are three things to double-check.

Ensure that your Maps API Key isn’t restricted

API Key restrictions can interfere with the Dynamic Store Locator app. To troubleshoot this step, please go through the instructions we listed above in “STEP 3: Unrestricting Your API Key”.

Activate your full account on Google Cloud

Google Cloud starts everyone off with a free trial for 90 days, after which you need to go into their dashboard and enable your full account. There’s a good chance that your free trial with Google Cloud just ended and now you need to activate your full account in order to continue using their services.

1. Go to cloud.google.com
2. Login to the email account you used to create your Maps API Key (if you’re not already logged in)
3. Click ‘Console’ in the upper right hand corner
4. Once logged in, Google may prompt you with a popup to ‘Activate’ your account.
5. Or, in the upper right hand corner of your Google Cloud dashboard, there will be a blue ‘Activate' button that you’ll need to press.

Enable billing in the Google Cloud project that houses your Maps API Key

While you may have already set up your billing details and put a card on file for your Google Cloud account, you need to make sure that billing has been enabled on the specific project that your Maps API Key was created in.

1. Go to cloud.google.com
2. Login to the email account you used to create your Maps API Key (if you’re not already logged in)
3. Click ‘Console’ in the upper right hand corner
4. On the Google Cloud Console homepage, under ‘Quick Access’, click the ‘Billing’ button.

If your project doesn’t have billing enabled, then you’ll see a message that “This project has no billing account”. Click ‘Link billing account’, then from the dropdown list, select your active billing account, and then “Set account”.

If your project does have billing enabled, then below the search bar, in the middle of the screen, click ‘Manage billing account’ and you should see the project name listed under “Projects linked to this billing account”.

For further troubleshooting of billing issues, see Google’s guide on “How to verify the billing status of your projects” or “How to enable, disable, or change billing for a project”.

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If after troubleshooting the above problems, your map still isn’t populating correctly, then please submit a ticket with our support team by going to the Dynamic Store Locator app in Shopify > “Help Center” on the left column > Submit A Ticket.

Advanced Maps API Key Troubleshooting

If your map isn’t displaying correctly and/or there’s an overlay on your map that says ‘For development purposes only’, here are the steps to identify the exact issue causing the problem.

1. Open your website in in a Google Chrome browser (you must use Chrome for this)
2. Navigate to the page of your site where your store locator map is embedded.
3. Right click anywhere on the screen and click ‘Inspect’.
4. In the Inspect tool, select ‘Console’ from the top menu.

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5. Scroll down until you see a Google Maps error message.

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6. Identify the specific error message for your map listed to the right of “JavaScript API error:”
7. Go to Google’s list of Maps API error codes here, locate the corresponding error message, and take the necessary steps they outline to solve the issue.

If you’re unable to solve the issue in your Google Cloud account, then please submit a ticket with our support team by going to the Dynamic Store Locator app in Shopify > “Help Center” on the left column > Submit A Ticket.

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