401 Error for Tier 0 account with $5 balance

[MotorGoat8716]

Hi, I'm am getting this constant error when trying to use Perplexity in Roo Code/VS Code: My Tier 0 API key passes authentication but is denied access to the documented Tier 0 models (pplx-7b-online, pplx-8x7b-online), resulting in "Invalid model" errors. Roo Code chat agent said to ask for clarification on my key's model entitlements.

Additional context from the AI Agent: Your curl tests consistently show that your Perplexity API key (********************************) results in a 400 Bad Request ("Invalid model") for all models tried, including pplx-7b-online and pplx-8x7b-online which are documented for Tier 0.

This means:

Your API key is valid for authentication with Perplexity (no 401 error in curl tests).
The issue with direct curl tests is that Perplexity's backend is not permitting your authenticated key to use these specific models. This likely points to an issue with your key's entitlements on Perplexity's side or a discrepancy in their documentation for Tier 0 model access.
Regarding the "401 Authorization Required" error when I use the perplexity-mcp server:
Since your API key passes authentication in direct curl tests, this persistent 401 error through the perplexity-mcp server (even when manually launched with the key exported) strongly indicates an issue within the perplexity-mcp server software itself. It's likely not correctly using or transmitting your (apparently auth-valid) API key to the Perplexity API.