Account restricted to AQ. tokens — requesting standard AIza API key restoration

Gemini API
1

Hi,

My Google account is currently unable to generate standard AIza... API keys in Google AI Studio. Every key I create — across all of my Google Cloud projects — is issued only in the new AQ.Ab8... token format.

These AQ. tokens do not work against the Generative Language REST API. When I call the endpoint: https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta/models/gemini-2.5-flash:generateContent

I receive the following error, regardless of whether I send the credential via the x-goog-api-key header or as an Authorization: Bearer token

401 UNAUTHENTICATED

"Request had invalid authentication credentials. Expected OAuth 2 access token,

login cookie or other valid authentication credential."

reason: API_KEY_SERVICE_BLOCKED

service: generativelanguage.googleapis.com

method: google.ai.generativelanguage.v1beta.GenerativeService.GenerateContent

What I have already tried:

  • Creating new keys in several different Google Cloud projects — all produce AQ. tokens only.

  • Sending the token as x-goog-api-key (correct for AIza keys) → 401.

  • Sending the token as Authorization: Bearer → still 401 with API_KEY_SERVICE_BLOCKED.

I need a standard AIza... API key to use the Gemini API from a local Python tool (direct REST calls). Could you please review my account and restore the ability to generate AIza-format keys, or advise on the correct way to authenticate the AQ. tokens against the generativelanguage.googleapis.com endpoint?

Thank you very much for your help.
2

My Google AI Studio account is generating only AQ. tokens across all projects (including newly created ones). Sending the key as x-goog-api-key returns 429 ResourceExhausted with limit: 0 on the free tier for all models (gemini-2.0-flash, gemini-2.5-flash, etc.).

Account email: p.....@gmail.com

Requesting restoration of standard AIza... API key generation. This is for a university project using the Gemini API via LangChain. Happy to provide any additional details needed.

3

We are moving away from Traffic keys (Alza) and towards a more secure Authentication Key (AQ). AI Studio will now only generate Authentication Key (AQ) keys. More information on key usage can be found in the Using Gemini API keys documentation.

Please submit any compatibility issues with services / SDKs etc. in this form for our engineering team to review. Thanks!