Explained : HTTP Status 400 – Bad Request and Its Impact

Type Exception Report

Message Invalid character found in the request target [/primetime-politics/episode/a-trade-trip-to-india–february-25-2026?id\u003dad10c71d-4df8-4787-bed9-ada435af5580 ]. The valid characters are defined in RFC 7230 and RFC 3986

Description The server cannot or will not process the request due to something that is perceived to be a client error (e.g., malformed request syntax, invalid request message framing, or deceptive request routing).

Exception

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Invalid character found in the request target [/primetime-politics/episode/a-trade-trip-to-india--february-25-2026?id\u003dad10c71d-4df8-4787-bed9-ada435af5580 ]. The valid characters are defined in RFC 7230 and RFC 3986
	org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11InputBuffer.parseRequestLine(Http11InputBuffer.java:484)
	org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.service(Http11Processor.java:270)
	org.apache.coyote.AbstractProcessorLight.process(AbstractProcessorLight.java:63)
	org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$ConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:905)
	org.apache.tomcat.util.net.Nio2Endpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(Nio2Endpoint.java:1685)
	org.apache.tomcat.util.net.SocketProcessorBase.run(SocketProcessorBase.java:52)
	org.apache.tomcat.util.net.AbstractEndpoint.processSocket(AbstractEndpoint.java:1266)
	org.apache.tomcat.util.net.Nio2Endpoint$Nio2SocketWrapper$2.completed(Nio2Endpoint.java:634)
	org.apache.tomcat.util.net.Nio2Endpoint$Nio2SocketWrapper$2.completed(Nio2Endpoint.java:610)
	java.base/sun.nio.ch.Invoker.invokeUnchecked(Invoker.java:129)
	java.base/sun.nio.ch.Invoker$2.run(Invoker.java:221)
	java.base/sun.nio.ch.AsynchronousChannelGroupImpl$1.run(AsynchronousChannelGroupImpl.java:113)
	org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1190)
	org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:659)
	org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:63)
	java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:1583)

Note The full stack trace of the root cause is available in the server logs.

Apache Tomcat/10.1.36