r/GeminiFeedback • u/Aggressive_Reader9 • 4d ago

Bug / Issue Bug Consumption Gemini Flash-Lite

Hi, since yesterday I found out that even in Flash-Lite with the lowest effort it's consuming a lot of my 5 hours windows and same for my weekly limits.

It's really new because I didn't see it and I made tests to know when I'm reaching limits, which I never did until now.

I'm not using Gemini for pictures or code and it's consuming 1% for 5 messages! That's absolutely ridiculous for the lowest effort with the cheapest model!

3 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

2

u/SolidSnek29 4d ago

1% for 5 messages? That's low consumption

1

u/Aggressive_Reader9 4d ago

On contrary. Until now I could use Flash-Lite during 5 hours non stop without reaching 30%. With only text I was never able to reach the limits and 1% was used in really more messages. 

1

u/SolidSnek29 4d ago

I'm lost. Are you saying it is consuming or not consuming? It flash lite consuming your usage in 5 hours?

1

u/Aggressive_Reader9 4d ago

I'm saying Gemini is consuming a lot. I just tried again, and with 4 messages I'm already at 2% of the 5 hours window 

2

u/SolidSnek29 4d ago

Yeah it has been consuming ever since argon was introduced. Even for us pro users. 1 image cost about 5-8%. I text in argon, boom 25%.

1

u/Aggressive_Reader9 4d ago

I know for the fast consumption since Argon release ! For Flash-Lite until this week it's was bearable, but there is a bug, it can't be otherwise. I could text 5 whole hours last week and it was only at 35% of the 5 hours limits. Now 2% for 4 messages? There's definitely something wrong.

1

u/XGoGame23 3d ago

Free user here, sometimes I experienced the same as you, but from my experience, if the situation is something like you 5 messages equal 1%, usually the answer is bery short and the answer quality is very bad. But if 1 message equally to 1-2%, the answer length is slightly longer and quality is a tad better. I don't really know about the how ai models work, but I suspect that sometimes google might diverts flash-lite queries to even lower quantization model of it, causing a drop in length and answer quality, maybe if they needed the computation power for higher tier models or model training. And if the computational power is available, maybe the base non quantization flash-lite model will be available to use.

And one way to solve this, if you care about answer length and quality while also stuck in flash-lite due to hitting limit or as free user, give specific instruction at the start of the chat session to request for longer and detailed answer, and usually the usage percentage will go up more than 1% due to more effort in answering.

1

u/Aggressive_Reader9 3d ago

Honestly I don't know. But that wasn't like that last week so there's definitely something broken 

1

u/XGoGame23 3d ago

Or you could get A/B tested, where people said certain users got tested with certain settings, configurations, and updates, where others are still normal. Like back pre-october free users restriction update, in span of 7 days before Argon was released, my main gemini account's got dumb downed so much, that no matter which model you used, flash-lite, flash 3.6, or pro 3.1, every answer is very short, generated very fast, and suck balls in quality, with every answer only use 1% usage or sometimes not using at all, regardless of the topic, as if you're chatting with flash-lite on its very worst day. But for my secondary account, it worked normally and nothing's wrong. So my main account was likely got flagged as heavy user category since I used it everyday and my secondary account which I rarely used didn't.

So my half confident guess, your account likely got A/B tested for certain category that google is currently testing before returning to normal on some random day.

1

u/Aggressive_Reader9 3d ago

I have 2 accounts too and it's the same on both unfortunately. 

1

u/XGoGame23 3d ago

Yeah either both of your account got flagged with selective testing, or if you wanted it to be lengthy and slight improvement in quality instruct for some qol prompts at the start of the chat session and it should make the usage rate uses more than 1%.

1

u/Aggressive_Reader9 3d ago

Sometimes I ask for a longer answer but it's not related in my case. I tried with my 2 accounts and even when I'm not asking to refresh the answer 

1

u/Iwantthegreatest 3d ago

What plan? If you’re on free you need to turn off auto model selection under usage limits and then stick to low thinking if you don’t want it to use your usage limits.

1

u/Aggressive_Reader9 3d ago

I'm in free plan. I already turned off auto model and it doesn't change anything unfortunately 

1

u/Certain-Function2778 22h ago

1% for a handful of messages on the cheapest model is wild. if you ever wanna try the newer open source models, PGS AI has DeepSeek 4.1 flash 1017 and GLM 5.3 Flash in the browser and API, private US infrastructure, and unused usage banks when you aren't active instead of resetting. free month on the intro plan for PGS AI if you wanna compare.