Manager UI "Invalid credentials" despite correct API key and configuration

[ashkhfi]

Welcome!

• Yes, I have searched for similar issues on GitHub and found none.

What did you do?

1. Set up a docker-compose.yml file to run evolution-api along with Traefik, PostgreSQL, and Redis.
2. Configured the evolution-api service with AUTHENTICATION_TYPE=apikey and set a valid AUTHENTICATION_API_KEY.
3. Enabled manager authentication by setting MANAGER_AUTHENTICATION=true and providing a MANAGER_USER and MANAGER_PASS.
4. Ensured WEB_URL and API_URL were correctly set to https://wa.ibmpgroup.com.
5. Started the stack using docker compose up -d.
6. Navigated to https://wa.ibmpgroup.com/manager/ in a browser.
7. Successfully logged in with the MANAGER_USER and MANAGER_PASS.
8. When prompted for the Global API Key, I entered the same value that was set for AUTHENTICATION_API_KEY.

What did you expect?

The manager UI displays an "Invalid credentials" error message immediately after submitting the Global API Key.

What did you observe instead of what you expected?

The manager UI displays an "Invalid credentials" error message immediately after submitting the Global API Key.

Screenshots/Videos

Which version of the API are you using?

We tested this on both evoapicloud/evolution-api:latest (which resolved to version 2.3.7 in the container logs) and
evoapicloud/evolution-api:v2.3.6. The issue occurred on both versions.

What is your environment?

Windows

Other environment specifications

OS: Linux
Environment: Docker with Docker Compose
Reverse Proxy: Traefik

If applicable, paste the log output

The evolution-api container logs do not show any explicit errors. The application appears to start, migrations run successfull
but there is no confirmation log that the server is listening. The most notable symptom is simply that the provided API key is
rejected by the manager UI. Traefik logs only showed 502 errors when the container failed to start during debugging steps, but
otherwise, routing appears correct.

Additional Notes

This setup was originally confusing due to a potential misconfiguration involving two separate URLs for the API and Manager. We
have since consolidated the configuration to use a single evolution-api service for both, but the authentication issue persist
across different image versions and clean restarts. This suggests the issue is not a simple configuration error but may be an
internal bug in how the manager UI validates its API key.