RPC error HTTP 401: Missing or unknown API key

Last updated: November 1, 2026

At a glance

Cause

Authentication runs before anything else, so a 401 says nothing about your method or the chain. The most common version we see is a request that carried no key at all: a deployment missing its environment variable, a client that dropped the header on a redirect, or a WebSocket library that does not send custom headers. A key that is present but not recognised gets the same unauthorized body, so the response alone cannot tell you which of the two you hit.

Solution

1. Read the error field first. unauthorized is about the credential; trial_expired and subscription_expired are about the account, and no change to your request will fix them.
2. Print what actually leaves the process: the header name, and the first few characters of the value. An empty environment variable sends a blank key, which fails like no key at all.
3. Send the key once, in one place: the x-token header, Authorization: Bearer <key>, the ?api-key= query parameter, or the path form https://triport.io/r/<API_KEY>/sol.
4. Copy the key again from the console at /app/keys. A revoked key stays unauthorized however it is sent.
5. On trial_expired or subscription_expired, choose or renew a plan. Keys are kept, and requests work again once the plan is active.

const res = await fetch("https://triport.io/sol", { method: "POST", headers, body });
if (res.status === 401) {
  const { error } = await res.json();
  // unauthorized | trial_expired | subscription_expired: no retry helps
  throw new Error(`Triport auth refused: ${error}`);
}

Example

{
  "error": "unauthorized",
  "message": "Missing or unknown API key. Pass your key as ?api-key=<key> or the header Authorization: Bearer <key>. Create or copy a key at https://triport.io/app/keys",
  "keys_url": "https://triport.io/app/keys"
}