Groq API calls from Azure Web App return 403 Forbidden

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Hello,

I would like to request an investigation into a Groq API connectivity issue.
Requests from our Azure Web App (App Service) are returning 403 Forbidden.
However, the same API key works successfully from our local environment.

Our application log shows the following error:
Groq STT failed (403) [model=whisper-large-v3]: Forbidden. Check GROQ_STT_API_KEY/GROQ_API_KEY and model permissions.

Here are the checks we have already performed:

  • Running with the same key from local Windows PowerShell succeeds.
    POST /audio/transcriptions → HTTP 200 (both v3-turbo and v3 succeed)

  • Running from Azure Web App SSH fails.
    GET /openai/v1/models → HTTP 403
    Response: {"error":{"message":"Forbidden"}}

API endpoint:
https://api.groq.com/openai/v1/audio/transcriptions

STT model:
whisper-large-v3-turbo