Stay organized with collections
Save and categorize content based on your preferences.
Learn how to resolve some errors raised by Security Command Center. This topic discusses
errors whose resolutions require more steps than can be easily described in an
error message.
Notifications
You might get the following errors when you use the Security Command Center API
notifications feature.
Error reading credential file from environment variable
java.lang.RuntimeException: java.io.IOException: Error reading credential file
from environment variable GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS
This error occurs when you try to use the Security Command Center notifications API
and the service account keys aren't accessible. To resolve this error, do the
following:
If you're using an IDE like Intellij, make sure that your development
environment is configured to point to the location where the service account
key is stored.
This error most commonly occurs when you aren't using the most current version
of the Google Cloud CLI. To resolve this error, update to the latest
gcloud CLI version by running:
gcloudcomponentsupdate
Web Security Scanner
To contact us about the error messages below,
send feedback about the specific scan.
Error message
Description
The app often redirected the scanner to an authentication page
If you're using Google authentication, the scanner detects auth redirects.
Most likely the credentials you're using to scan the site are invalid.
To check the validity of credentials, start a Chrome incognito session and
try to log in with the test credentials on your application.
The app produced a high number of errors during this scan
Web Security Scanner found that a high percentage of requests resulted
in 4xx or 5xx HTTP responses. Verify your
scanning credentials and the target URL. If the problem continues to
occur, file a bug.
The scan found a small number of results during crawling
Web Security Scanner didn't find many pages to test. This error is
expected for sites that don't often change the URL and sites that have
application features behind multi-step navigation bars. Try adding more
seed URLs, like the URL for each feature that a navigation bar leads to.
The scan found too many URLs while crawling results and has not tested all
of them.
This problem can appear if your app has many URLs that lead to the same
template. In this case,
file a feature request and the team might
be able to tune the duplicate-page logic for you.
An internal error occurred during the scan.
This message can indicate one or more internal errors. If you get this
message, send feedback about the specific
scan.
The scan timed out while crawling the app
There is a time limit for each stage of the crawler.
If you have a large site, then this error may occur.
File a feature request, and the team can
manually increase your crawl timeout.
If you have a small site, then something might have gone wrong with
the crawler. File a bug with your scan
details to request a review.
The scan triggered a DDOS protection mechanism and has been stopped
This error is caused by too many queries, too fast. Try reducing the
Queries Per Second (QPS).
Fixing issues
If Web Security Scanner reports an issue, you need to disable browser
cross-site scripting (XSS) protection and then verify the location. For more
information, see
Verify the issue.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-09-03 UTC."],[],[],null,["| Standard, Premium, and Enterprise [service tiers](/security-command-center/docs/service-tiers)\n\nLearn how to resolve some errors raised by Security Command Center. This topic discusses\nerrors whose resolutions require more steps than can be easily described in an\nerror message.\n| **Note:** For more troubleshooting information, see [Troubleshooting](/security-command-center/docs/troubleshooting). In addition, Security Command Center provides error detectors, which report configuration errors that prevent Security Command Center and its services from working properly. Each error finding includes suggested remediation steps. For more information, see [Security Command Center errors](/security-command-center/docs/concepts-scc-errors).\n\nNotifications\n\nYou might get the following errors when you use the Security Command Center API\nnotifications feature.\n\nError reading credential file from environment variable\n\n`java.lang.RuntimeException: java.io.IOException: Error reading credential file\nfrom environment variable GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS`\n\nThis error occurs when you try to use the Security Command Center notifications API\nand the service account keys aren't accessible. To resolve this error, do the\nfollowing:\n\n- Complete the steps to [set up a service account](/security-command-center/docs/how-to-notifications) and get the service account key.\n- If you're using an IDE like Intellij, make sure that your development environment is configured to point to the location where the service account key is stored.\n\nInvalid choice: `add-iam-policy-binding`\n\n`ERROR: (gcloud.pubsub.topics) Invalid choice: 'add-iam-policy-binding'`\n\nThis error most commonly occurs when you aren't using the most current version\nof the Google Cloud CLI. To resolve this error, update to the latest\ngcloud CLI version by running: \n\n gcloud components update\n\nWeb Security Scanner\n\nTo contact us about the error messages below,\n[send feedback](/security-command-center/docs/getting-support) about the specific scan.\n\n| Error message | Description |\n|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|\n| The app often redirected the scanner to an authentication page | If you're using Google authentication, the scanner detects auth redirects. Most likely the credentials you're using to scan the site are invalid. To check the validity of credentials, start a Chrome incognito session and try to log in with the test credentials on your application. |\n| The app produced a high number of errors during this scan | Web Security Scanner found that a high percentage of requests resulted in `4xx` or `5xx` HTTP responses. Verify your scanning credentials and the target URL. If the problem continues to occur, [file a bug](/security-command-center/docs/getting-support). |\n| The scan found a small number of results during crawling | Web Security Scanner didn't find many pages to test. This error is expected for sites that don't often change the URL and sites that have application features behind multi-step navigation bars. Try adding more seed URLs, like the URL for each feature that a navigation bar leads to. |\n| The scan found too many URLs while crawling results and has not tested all of them. | This problem can appear if your app has many URLs that lead to the same template. In this case, [file a feature request](/security-command-center/docs/getting-support) and the team might be able to tune the duplicate-page logic for you. |\n| An internal error occurred during the scan. | This message can indicate one or more internal errors. If you get this message, [send feedback](/security-command-center/docs/getting-support) about the specific scan. |\n| The scan timed out while crawling the app | There is a time limit for each stage of the crawler. - If you have a large site, then this error may occur. [File a feature request](/security-command-center/docs/getting-support), and the team can manually increase your crawl timeout. - If you have a small site, then something might have gone wrong with the crawler. [File a bug](/security-command-center/docs/getting-support) with your scan details to request a review. |\n| The scan triggered a DDOS protection mechanism and has been stopped | This error is caused by too many queries, too fast. Try reducing the Queries Per Second (QPS). |\n\nFixing issues\n\nIf Web Security Scanner reports an issue, you need to disable browser\ncross-site scripting (XSS) protection and then verify the location. For more\ninformation, see\n[Verify the issue](/security-command-center/docs/how-to-remediate-web-security-scanner-findings#verify_the_issue).\n| **Important:** If you disable XSS protection in the browser, only use that browser instance to test your own security issues.\n\nWhat's next\n\nLearn about [Security Command Center errors](/security-command-center/docs/concepts-scc-errors)."]]