Firestore Rules deployment fails with HTTP 409 Requested entity already exists after successful Ruleset creation

[wearlindelacruz-oss]

Environment

• firebase-tools: 15.24.0
• Google Cloud SDK: 556.0.0
• Windows 11
• Firebase Project ID: smartcut-501cc
• Authentication: Project Owner

Problem

I am unable to deploy Firestore Security Rules.

The rules compile successfully.

The Firebase CLI successfully creates a new Ruleset.

Deployment fails when updating the Firestore release with:

HTTP 409
Requested entity already exists

Publishing the exact same rules from the Firebase Console also fails with:

An unknown error occurred.

What I already verified

• Project Owner permissions
• Correct Firebase project
• Firebase CLI reinstalled
• Rules compile successfully
• Ruleset creation succeeds
• Same behavior from Firebase Console
• Same behavior after reinstalling firebase-tools
• Same behavior after using Google Cloud SDK

Debug log

The debug log shows:

1. Rules compilation succeeds.
2. A new Ruleset is created successfully.
3. Updating the existing release cloud.firestore fails.
4. The deployment ends with HTTP 409.

Steps to reproduce

firebase deploy --only firestore:rules

Expected behavior

The new Ruleset should become the active Firestore Security Rules release.

Actual behavior

Deployment always fails with:

HTTP 409
Requested entity already exists

Additional information

I also tried:

• Reinstalling firebase-tools
• Publishing directly from Firebase Console
• Using Google Cloud SDK
• Calling the Firebase Rules REST API

The REST API also failed when attempting to update the release.

This appears to be related to updating the Firestore Rules release rather than compiling the Ruleset.

The issue is reproducible every time.

Debug excerpt

Rules compiled successfully.
Ruleset created successfully.
Release update fails with HTTP 409 Requested entity already exists.

[wearlindelacruz-oss]

Additional information

I have attached the complete debug log generated with:

firebase deploy --only firestore:rules --debug

The log confirms:

• Rules compile successfully.
• A new Ruleset is created successfully.
• The deployment fails while updating the Firestore Release.

firebase_rules_debug.txt

• The CLI ends with:

HTTP 409 Requested entity already exists.

[aalej]

Thanks for sharing your debug logs @wearlindelacruz-oss. I am currently working on reproducing this issue, but I'm not encountering any errors when running firebase deploy --only firestore:rules.

At the moment, it's difficult to determine what exactly caused the 409 error. Since an error also occurred when using the Firebase Console, the issue might be backend related, project specific, or related to the rules that is being deployed.

Any chance you could share the contents of your firestore.rules file? This will help us verify if the issue is with the rules themselves. Please make sure to remove any PII before sharing the contents.

[wearlindelacruz-oss]

reglas_133_con_rrhh_expediente.txt

Thanks for taking a look.

I've attached the current firestore.rules file (with no sensitive information included).

This is the same rules file that causes the HTTP 409 error during deployment from both the Firebase CLI and the Firebase Console.

Please let me know if you need any additional logs or if you'd like me to test anything else.

[reglas_133_con_rrhh_expediente.txt]

[aalej]

Thanks for sharing the rules you used. It looks like your firestore.rules file is hitting the limits for security rules(see this documentation). Particularly, it may be hitting the 250 KB limit on the size of the compiled ruleset.

Since your rules contains nested functions, extensive lists of allowed keys, complex type validation, etc. this causes the compiled ruleset to grow exponentially. To resolve this, please try to simplify your firestore.rules then re-deploy again.

[wearlindelacruz-oss]

Update

After additional testing, the behavior has changed.

Environment:

• Firebase CLI 15.24.0
• Windows 11
• Project: smartcut-501cc

Now every deployment fails during rule validation with:

=== Deploying to 'smartcut-501cc'...

i deploying firestore
i firestore: ensuring required API firestore.googleapis.com is enabled...
i firestore: reading indexes from firestore.indexes.json...
i cloud.firestore: checking firestore.rules for compilation errors...

Error:
Request to https://firebaserules.googleapis.com/v1/projects/smartcut-501cc:test

HTTP Error: 503
The service is currently unavailable.

Additional verification:

• firebase login works
• firebase projects:list works
• firebase use smartcut-501cc works
• Rules were reduced from more than 5000 lines to fewer than 1000 lines.
• The same HTTP 503 occurs.
• Firebase Support Case: 10417008

This appears to fail before any syntax validation is returned.

Could this be related to the Rules API backend rather than the rules themselves?

[wearlindelacruz-oss]

Additional update

Following your recommendation, I created a significantly simplified version of my Firestore rules.

• Original rules file: over 5,000 lines.
• Simplified rules file: approximately 4,071 lines.

With this simplified version, the rules compiled successfully:

+ cloud.firestore: rules file firestore.rules compiled successfully
i firestore: uploading rules firestore.rules...

However, the deployment still did not complete successfully.

It failed during the Ruleset creation/upload step with the following error:

Error: Request to https://firebaserules.googleapis.com/v1/projects/smartcut-501cc/rulesets
had HTTP Error: 503, The service is currently unavailable.

This indicates that the rules compiler completes successfully, but the deployment fails afterward when creating/uploading the Ruleset.

Because the same error occurs even after significantly simplifying the rules, it appears that the issue is no longer related to rule compilation itself.

Firebase Support Case: 10417008

Could you please verify whether this is a backend issue affecting Ruleset creation for this project or whether there is another limitation that should be investigated?

[wearlindelacruz-oss]

For easier investigation, I have attached:

• The simplified Firestore rules file (~4,071 lines).
• The complete Firebase CLI debug log generated with firebase deploy --only firestore:rules --debug.

Please let me know if you need any additional information or if you would like me to perform further tests.

reglas.txt

firestore-rules-debug-4071.log

[joehan]

Hey @wearlindelacruz-oss - this seems to be a backend issue caused by the complexity of your rules file. I've reached out to the team that owns this service - however, it will be easier to assist you if you open a support ticket (https://firebase.google.com/support/troubleshooter/contact) as that will let the team access logs and project specific information that I do not have access to.

[wearlindelacruz-oss]

Thanks, Joe.

I have opened a Firebase Support case as recommended.

Case ID: 10417219

I included the project information, the Firestore Security Rules file, debug logs, and a reference to this GitHub issue.

Thank you for escalating this to the backend team. I'll update this issue once I receive additional information from Firebase Support.