After upgrading @google/genai from 1.23.0 to 1.26.0, Vertex AI authentication with Application Default Credentials (ADC) failed with a 401 UNAUTHENTICATED error indicating CREDENTIALS_MISSING, even though the same ADC credentials worked with 1.23.0. Reproducible on Cloud Run and locally with ADC. Multiple users confirmed downgrading to 1.23.0, 1.24.0, or 1.25.0 restored authentication, confirming a regression in 1.26.0 (which pulled in google-auth-library v10.4.1).