Persistent API Key Errors After Migration to 3.1 (Invalid / Expired Key Confusion)

Google AI Studio
1

I’ve been facing a persistent issue for several days now, which started after migrating to v3.1.

:cross_mark: Initial Error

Error generating fix:
{
  "error": {
    "code": 400,
    "message": "API key not valid. Please pass a valid API key.",
    "status": "INVALID_ARGUMENT"
  }
}

This suggests the API key being sent is invalid.

Steps I Took

  • Generated a new API key (even though my previous key was created just a day earlier and should have been valid)

  • Retried the request with the new key

New Error Encountered

After that, I started getting this error:

com.google.net.rpc3.util.RpcFutureStream$RpcStreamException:
generic::INVALID_ARGUMENT: API key expired. Please renew the API key.

Gemini Assistant’s Explanation

Gemini suggested that this might be due to:

  1. The original issue: incorrect/missing API key in the request

  2. A separate backend issue where the AI Studio workspace/session token has expired

Suggested fixes included:

  • Hard refresh (Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + R)

  • Updating API key in workspace secrets

  • Restarting the dev environment

Current Problem

Even after:

  • Generating a new API key

  • Updating secrets

  • Restarting the workspace

I am still facing inconsistent errors:

  • Sometimes “API key invalid”

  • Sometimes “API key expired”

My Questions

  1. Is this a known issue with AI Studio after v3.1 migration?

  2. How can I verify whether the problem is:

    • In my code (incorrect key usage)

    • Or in the AI Studio workspace/session itself

  3. Is there a reliable way to reset the workspace environment completely?

  4. Could this be related to backend token/session expiration rather than the API key itself?

Help Needed

At this point, I’m unsure whether this is:

  • A configuration issue

  • A bug in AI Studio

  • Or something wrong in how the API key is being injected

Any guidance or debugging steps would be really helpful.