If a Tenor API key stopped working after June 30, 2026, first check the official service discontinuation notice. Google says existing third-party API integrations would be fully decommissioned on that date and subsequent requests would fail. A new key is not the expected fix.
The quickstart also states that new API clients are no longer accepted as of January 2026. Old tutorials that walk through creating a fresh key are historical instructions.
Identify which request is failing
Open your application’s normal network diagnostics and distinguish these requests:
- A search request to a Tenor API endpoint.
- A direct request for a GIF or video file.
- A request to your own server, which may call Tenor internally.
- A navigation to a Tenor.com page.
They can fail independently. A successful media request may come from a cache and says nothing about search availability. A failing request to your own server may hide the upstream response.
Record the hostname, time, HTTP status, and response body after removing credentials. Do not paste full request URLs containing API keys into public bug reports.
Avoid fixes that cannot restore a retired service
Changing CORS headers, moving a key into a query string, rotating credentials, or adding retries will not reverse a provider sunset. Browser CORS errors can obscure an underlying failure, but a proxy only changes where the request originates.
If your logs contain failures before the sunset, investigate them separately. They may reflect old quota or configuration problems. Google’s notice does not specify one error code for every decommissioned request, so do not hard-code shutdown detection to a guessed status.
Restore a usable composer
Stop automatic retries against the retired API. Show a clear unavailable state and keep text messaging functional. Then move search to a supported provider and test authentication and response parsing together.
For a curated reaction picker, GIFs.so’s REST guide is one option. A verified account is required, and the API has its own limits and schemas. The migration checklist covers saved favorites and old message links, which changing credentials alone cannot repair.