Notice: This website is an unofficial Microsoft Knowledge Base (hereinafter KB) archive and is intended to provide a reliable access to deleted content from Microsoft KB. All KB articles are owned by Microsoft Corporation. Read full disclaimer for more details.

FP2002: Percent Sign in URL Returns HTTP 404 Error


View products that this article applies to.

Symptoms

When you try to browse a folder whose name contains a percent sign, you may receive an error message similar to the following:
HTTP/1.1 404 Object Not Found

↑ Back to the top


Cause

A percent sign defines an "escape sequence" in a Web address, as described in section "2.4. Escape Sequences," in the Request for Comment (RFC) article number 2396.

↑ Back to the top


More information

Escape sequences are used in a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) to allow characters that may appear in a folder or file name, but are not allowed in a URL. The syntax for an escape sequence is defined as a percent sign, followed by two hexadecimal digits, (for example, %A1, %2B, and so on).

When you name a folder to have a percent sign, if the characters following the percent sign are valid hexadecimal characters, the folder name may not be resolved correctly, for example:
  • A folder named 100%DAD may not work, because the two characters following the percent sign are valid hexadecimal characters. In this case, the "%DA" sequence may be misinterpreted as character 218, which, depending on the character set that is being used, may be a "Latin Capital U with Acute." This results in a Web request for a folder name that may not physically exist on the server.
  • A folder named 100%MOM may work, because the two characters following the percent sign are not valid hexadecimal characters.

Additional References

For more information about this topic, please see the following Web sites:
RFC 2396�Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax
RFC 2396�Hypertext Transfer Protocol - HTTP/1.1
284278 FP2000: Cannot Open a Subweb with an Ampersand Character in the Name

↑ Back to the top


Keywords: KB289624, kbprb

↑ Back to the top

Article Info
Article ID : 289624
Revision : 3
Created on : 1/31/2007
Published on : 1/31/2007
Exists online : False
Views : 400