Hello Vercel Community and staff,
I’m troubleshooting repeated Vercel AI Gateway failures in a controlled local test. I have stopped further provider requests while investigating.
Configuration
- Model:
openai/gpt-5.6-luna - Vercel AI SDK
generateText()with structured output - Input included text and three PNG evidence images
- Authentication used an AI Gateway API key; no key value or identifying key details are included here
Reproducible failures
The following controlled attempts returned the same redacted result:
- Attempt 3:
2026-08-28T04:06:32.122891Z - Attempt 4:
2026-08-28T05:01:49.370476Z - Attempt 5:
2026-08-28T10:12:03.270018Z
Error metadata:
errorName: GatewayResponseErrorgatewayType: response_errorstatusCode: 500timedOut: falseAttempts 4 and 5 failed in approximately 63–65 ms. No generation ID, input/output token usage, provider-cost metadata, or corresponding AI Gateway request-log entry was returned. The API key’s displayed last-used time also did not update to reflect these attempts.
Compatibility correction already validated
Earlier attempts emitted the AI SDK warning that the image content-part type was deprecated and that a file part with an image media type should be used.
LaunchAffiliate was corrected narrowly to use the supported file content-part representation while preserving the original image bytes and MIME types. Focused regression tests and the directly affected validation passed, and the deprecated warning disappeared.
Attempt 5 nevertheless returned the same HTTP 500, so the deprecated content-part representation does not appear to be the remaining cause.
Credit and routing questions
Immediately before Attempt 5, the AI Gateway dashboard displayed a $5.00 credit balance, verified card status, and auto-reload off. After Attempt 5, the displayed balance was $0.00. There is no request log, token usage, provider-cost record, or other evidence establishing that $5.00 was actually charged.
Vercel Agent indicated that:
- The short response time, missing generation ID/log entry, and unchanged key last-used time suggest the requests failed in the Gateway layer before reaching OpenAI.
openai/gpt-5.6-lunarequires paid AI Gateway credits and cannot use promotional/free-tier credits.
Could Vercel staff or someone familiar with current AI Gateway access rules please clarify:
- Is the paid-credit requirement stated above correct for this account type and model?
- Would an ineligible promotional-credit balance normally produce this HTTP 500 /
response_errorbehavior rather than an explicit access or billing error? - Why would such a pre-routing failure not appear in Gateway logs or update the key’s last-used timestamp?
- What could explain the displayed $5.00-to-$0.00 balance change when no provider usage or charge record is visible?
- Is there a safe, non-provider diagnostic or account setting to verify before another request?
No API keys, private screenshots, product identifiers, campaign data, credentials, environment values, or local paths are included in this post.
Thank you.