Why is my AC running but not cooling the apartment? (Dubai Marina)

Adding a renter's angle: if you're leasing, a cooling fault like this is usually the landlord's or the building's responsibility, not yours. Check your tenancy contract before you pay for gas out of pocket — take a photo of the thermostat reading as evidence.

Filters were absolutely filthy 😳 washed them and there was a thin layer of ice on the coil like you said. Cooling better already. Booking a service to be safe. Thank you!

Adding a note as this comes up every summer — "running but not cooling well" splits into a few distinct causes worth ruling out separately: if it also smells musty, that's a dirty coil/drain; if it keeps starting and stopping, that's short-cycling (often low gas or a dirty coil); and if cooling fades over the season, it's usually a refrigerant leak, not a unit that "needs gas". Match the symptom to the cause rather than guessing.

Worth a seasonal note now the worst heat is passing: if your AC was running but not really cooling through the peak weeks and it seems better as the weather eases, that is usually the system having been unable to keep up with extreme load rather than fixing itself, often a dirty coil or low gas meant it simply could not pull the room down when it was 45 outside, and now the lighter load hides it. This is the sensible window to get the coil cleaned and the gas checked properly, so it can actually reach temperature next summer instead of running flat-out and never getting there. If it still runs constantly without cooling even now in milder weather, that points to a real fault (gas, compressor or a sizing/airflow problem) worth diagnosing rather than living with.