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The preview on the right of the site builder is a private copy of your site that updates as you work. Now and then it takes a while to start, shows a blank page, or stops showing your latest change. This guide goes from the gentlest fix to the strongest. None of these steps change your live site or lose your work. Your changes are saved in your project, not in the preview.

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Give it a moment

When you open a site, or after a big change, the preview shows Loading Preview with what it is doing, such as Compiling your project…, and how long it has been going. This usually takes under a minute. Click Show startup details to see each step.
Loading Preview: Compiling your project... with a progress bar, Your preview will appear here shortly, 8s, and Show startup details (5), outlined

The preview starting up

If it can’t start, the same screen offers a button with the fix it recommends: Retry Preview checks again, Restart preview restarts it (usually the fastest fix), and Rebuild preview starts it from scratch when a restart won’t help. The text under each button says why.

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Use the preview menu

Click the three dots in the preview’s toolbar. Try them in this order:
The three-dot button in the preview toolbar, outlined, and its menu: Refresh, Restart, outlined, Resync assets, and Destroy & Rebuild in red, outlined

The preview menu

  1. Refresh reloads the preview in your browser. Use it when the preview looks out of date.
  2. Resync assets copies your images and files to the preview again. Use it when pictures show as broken.
  3. Restart restarts the preview and keeps what it has already installed, so it is much quicker than a rebuild. It fixes most blank or frozen previews.
  4. Destroy & Rebuild throws the preview away and builds a new one from your project. Use it when nothing else works.

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Rebuild from scratch

Destroy & Rebuild asks first. Click Destroy & Rebuild in the window to go ahead; it typically takes 2 to 5 minutes, and the preview shows its progress while it starts.
Destroy & Rebuild Preview: This will permanently destroy the current preview machine and create a fresh one with a clean npm install. Any unsaved container state will be lost. This typically takes 2-5 minutes. With Cancel and Destroy & Rebuild

Rebuilding asks first

“Unsaved container state” means things that only lived inside the preview, never your pages, files or content.

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Good to know

  • Someone else is fixing it: if a teammate is already restarting or rebuilding the preview, the menu says so and its buttons wait until they finish. Refresh still works.
  • On a branch: each branch has its own preview. Restart gives the branch a fresh one, and Resync assets and Destroy & Rebuild aren’t offered there.
  • Still stuck? Ask in the chat on the left, for example “The preview won’t load, can you check what’s wrong?”. It can look at the preview’s error messages and fix the code that causes them.