Troubleshooting and common questions

Here are some common issues we've seen raised about working with the MCP.

Most operations will complete without any issues. The generate-design tool can have longer execution times. If you experience a timeout with these operations in the Canva MCP, we recommend increasing your timeout to 60 seconds.

Create an app in the Developer Portal⁠(opens in a new tab or window) and turn on Canva MCP. The app's Credentials give you a client ID and client secret, and you manage the app's redirect URLs in the Portal. For the steps, follow the Canva for AI assistants path in the Quickstart.

Canva doesn't support organization level authentication. Each user must authenticate individually with Canva. Unlike some APIs where you can authenticate at the application level, the Canva MCP requires per-user authentication for the following reasons:

• Access varies by user: Users have different permissions to designs, brand kits, and assets based on their Canva account and team memberships
• Personal content: Users can only access their own designs and resources, or those shared with them specifically
• Security and privacy: Individual authentication ensures users only see content they're authorized to access

You can't set up a single "service account" or application-level authentication that works for all users. Each user connecting through your platform will need to complete the OAuth flow with Canva to grant access to their personal content.

Canva's MCP server communicates over two domains:

• canva.com
• canva.ai

Your client will need to allow responses from both domains for optimal performance and to avoid cross-origin request restrictions.