Allowed/Ignored providers Issues

[compact cave]

Hey everyone!
I’m trying to get my "Allowed/Ignored" provider restrictions and fallback setup working correctly in OpenRouter:

Case 1: Enforced Providers Not Respected
•  In my account settings, I exclusively enabled only “Anthropic” and “Google AI Studio” as Allowed Providers with “Always enforce” ON.
•  My primary model was set to “openai/gpt-4o-mini”, with fallbacks defined as “anthropic/claude-3.5-sonnet” and “google/gemini-flash-1.5”.
•  Despite the enforced selection, OpenRouter routed to the primary model via Azure, which was not on my approved list. I expected requests to skip the unavailable primary provider/model and proceed to the fallback models on allowed providers only.

Case 2: Ignored Provider Still Used
•  In another test, I listed “Anthropic” as an Ignored Providers in account settings, with “claude-3.5-sonnet” as the primary model and other fallback models specified.
•  OpenRouter still successfully routed to “claude-3.5-sonnet” via Anthropic, ignoring the exclusion, and did not trigger the fallback chain.

Am I missing a config step, or is this a bug? Has anyone figured out how to get strict provider enforcement working for both normal and fallback requests?

I will greatly appreciate if anyone can help me figure this out! thanks

[torpid wasp]

I'm an AI assistant - my answers may be incorrect and I cannot see screenshots. Please verify information with the OpenRouter docs.

To help debug your Allowed/Ignored provider enforcement issues, could you provide the following:

1. Can you share the full error message or relevant response logs when routing didn't respect your restrictions?
2. What exact provider slugs did you enter in Allowed and Ignored lists? (Copy them from the provider list at OpenRouter Models for accuracy.)
3. Are you enforcing these settings via the web UI only, or are you also passing any provider parameters (like only or ignore) in your API requests?

These details will help pinpoint whether it's a misconfiguration or a possible bug. For reference on provider restrictions, see the sections on only and ignore Provider Routing and Ignoring Providers:

"You can allow only specific providers for a request by setting the only field in the provider object."

"You can ignore providers for a request by setting the ignore field in the provider object."

Let me know your answers and I can help further troubleshoot, or escalate to the mods if needed.

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[compact cave]

Case 1: First It used openai as provider for gpt-4o-mini, but when I added openai to ignored provider(In UI only). Instead of using fallback models, it used provider as azure to acess gpt-4o-mini.

Generation url/id:

1. https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/generation?id=gen-1763017053-4f9I3bQR9BpgyJRCp59b
2. https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/generation?id=gen-1763017594-B1CWweyfpp0ocB1FEyDp

[torpid wasp]

Thank you for the details and the generation links.

Based on OpenRouter's documentation, when using Allowed or Ignored provider restrictions, the router should only use providers that match your exact preferences. However, provider routing can be complex if multiple endpoints (like OpenAI and Azure hosting the same model) are available.

Quoting the docs:

"You can set the providers that OpenRouter will prioritize for your request using the order field... If you don’t want to allow any other providers, you should disable fallbacks as well."
"You can use the copy button next to provider names on model pages to get the exact provider slug, including any variants like “/turbo.”"
"If you want strict provider control, specify the exact provider slugs in your order array, and set allow_fallbacks: false."
Provider Routing

In your case, it appears the router simply switched to Azure for gpt-4o-mini after OpenAI was ignored, instead of moving to your fallback models. This usually means the provider restriction is not specific enough (i.e., only ignoring "openai", but not all possible providers of gpt-4o-mini) or that the restriction is not carried through the fallback logic as expected.

To troubleshoot:

• Try specifying the exact provider slugs for "Allowed" or "Ignored" (for example, "azure", "openai", "google", etc.) using the slugs shown at OpenRouter Models.
• For strict routing, use the provider.order field in your API calls and set allow_fallbacks: false to force OpenRouter to exclude all others and disable automatic fallbacks.
• If setting these still doesn't work as intended in the UI or API, this may be a bug.

If you have already used the correct provider slugs and UI setti...

...ngs with "Always Enforce" ON, and the issue persists, you should contact the mods or OpenRouter support directly, as this is potentially a routing bug.

Reference:

"If you don’t want to allow any other providers, you should disable fallbacks as well."
Provider Routing

Let me know if you can confirm the exact slugs you used, or escalate by contacting support if strict enforcement is still not respected.

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