I would like to request temporary access (wp-admin and FTP) to your site to take a better look at the issue. You will find the needed fields for this below the comment area when you log in to leave your next reply. The information you will enter is private which means only you and I can see and have access to it.
Our Debugging Procedures
I will be checking various settings in the backend to see if the issue can be resolved. Although I won't be making changes that affect the live site, it is still good practice to backup the site before providing us access. In the event that we do need to debug the site further, I will duplicate the site and work in a separate, local development environment to avoid affecting the live site.
- Please make a backup of the site files and database before providing us access.
- If you do not see the wp-admin/FTP fields this means your post & website login details will be made PUBLIC. DO NOT post your website details unless you see the required wp-admin/FTP fields. If you do not, please ask me to enable the private box.
Per our developer - when I go to the staging site, it tells me I need to register to get updates, so I click Register Now, and it takes me to the page to enter the key. When I put the key in it says invalid site key for the current site.
Yes, it seems that you have just one key. That's why things are not working.
It looks like you're using an End-user (one-site) license. This means someone purchased a license to build your site and then transferred it to you. This license is limited to one site only and you can't change the site or license.
"So you need to create a new "staging/dev" WPML key from here (http://wpml.org/account/sites) for this exact domain:" -- Sorry I am not familiar with the product, how do I create the new environment?
I mentioned in my latest reply here (https://wpml.org/forums/topic/site-key-invalid/#post-14569301) that this current account type and the membership that you are currently on allows you to use WPML on just one site. So there's no way to add an extra domain.
I explained above the steps that would need to be followed in case you need to use more domains:
1. Buy a different membership
2. If it doesn't allow you to do this from this current account, please create a separate/new WPML.org account that has more licenses.
From what I can see, the "WPML API server" connection shows a red X which means that your site is not able to reach our API so that the key can get confirmed.
This can be either related to your hosting or to our System. I will be getting in touch with our Systems team first, so that they can check the connection and IP for this exact domain and see if this issue can be fixed from our side.
I will get back to you as soon as I have any updates from the team.
I'm leaving the ticket assigned to myself for now.
