Feeds with URL having escaped characters not loading (correctly or at all)

problem
#1

I have a feed from the URL http://stackoverflow.com/feeds/tag/c%23 yet it is getting feeds from http://stackoverflow.com/feeds/tag/c#
Thus, due to URL rules it ignores the # and it gets it from http://stackoverflow.com/feeds/tag/c
Which is actually wrong.

The obvious problem here is that the escape sequence %23 in the URL is translated to # and that is causing the issue.
Please could you make sure you get feeds from the proper escaped URL string and not the converted URL string.

2 Likes
#2

I have this same problem with feed https://www.newsblur.com/site/6021524/news-from-dalston-team

What is even more confusing is that it works when you add the feed, but it has changed and brake the feed when it is first refreshed.

(In the below I’m showing only part of the URL that is changed)

From:

content.met.police.uk%2Fcs%2FSatellite%3Fc%3DMPSSafer_C%26cid%3D1257246961010%26feed%3Dnews%26p%3D1257246745756%26pagename%3DMPS_CMS_Internet%2FMPSRSSLayout

to:

content.met.police.uk/cs/Satellite?c=MPSSafer_C%26cid=1257246961010%26feed=news%26p=1257246745756%26pagename=MPS_CMS_Internet/MPSRSSLayout

This breaks this feed and would also break all other feeds that need character encoding when using the excellent http://fivefilters.org/content-only/

#3

A nice workaround suggested by Keyvan from FiveFilters is to use an URL shortener to hide the characters of the feed URL from Newsblur.