Why don't Image links and external links that contain an asterisk work?

Question

When I add an external image with a URL that contains an asterisk, it works in the image preview, but when I save, or do a page preview, it's a broken link.  When I use the same URL as a link, the link is created, it's blue, it's underlined, but it's not clickable... If I replace the askterisk with %2a both cases work. (Links to Graphite graphs (http://graphite.wikidot.com/) often contain asterisks... so this is annoying.

unknown · Answer

I was able to get past it by going to either https://jira.atlassian.com/ or https://id.atlassian.com (can't remember which?) and logging in - not sure why it was creating a "forever looping URL" but it seemed to have something to do with trying to link my account on https://answers.atlassian.com to https://jira.atlassian.com/ - now that that's done, it seems to work fine.

I was able to add some additional notes to the ticket you mentioned above.

Thanks!

Daniel Borcherding · Answer

phrend,

That is a very strange error to get.  Could you try opening another support case today?  What email are you using to try to signup?  You can email me at dborcherding@atlassian if you don't want this discussion on our public forum.

unknown · Answer

The problem your other customer was having is EXACTLY the problem that I'm seeing - I'm using Confluence 4.3.2

Here's a simple script I wrote to help me work around the issue:

#!/bin/bash

#
# confluence doesn't like asterisks in URLs, so this script converts them to %2a
#

if [ $# -ne 1 ]; then
  echo "Usage: $(basename $0) '<url>'"
  exit 1
fi
echo ""
echo "URL for Confluence:"
echo $1 | sed 's/\*/%2a/g'

I tried to open a support ticket yesterday, and was getting an error... I just clicked on your JIRA link above, and get taken to a similar page... the text is something like, "Have you ever been to support before..." and there are two buttons - they are more verbose, but basically are, "No - set my account up" and "Yes" - when I click the, "No - set my account up" link, I get the following error (as I did yesterday):

414 Request-URI Too Large

The URL of that error page is below - so you can see why it's "too large":

https://id.atlassian.com/profile/linkAccount.action?application=jac&continue=https%3a%2f%2fjira%2eatlassian%2ecom%2fbrowse%2fCONF-26758%3fapplication%3djac%26continue%3dhttps%253A%252F%252Fjira%2eatlassian%2ecom%252Fbrowse%252FCONF-26758%26application%3djac%26continue%3dhttps%253A%252F%252Fjira%2eatlassian%2ecom%252Fbrowse%252FCONF-26758%253Fapplication%253Djac%2526continue%253Dhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fjira%2eatlassian%2ecom%25252Fbrowse%25252FCONF-26758%26application%3djac%26continue%3dhttps%253A%252F%252Fjira%2eatlassian%2ecom%252Fbrowse%252FCONF-26758%253Fapplication%253Djac%2526continue%253Dhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fjira%2eatlassian%2ecom%25252Fbrowse%25252FCONF-26758%2526application%253Djac%2526continue%253Dhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fjira%2eatlassian%2ecom%25252Fbrowse%25252FCONF-26758%25253Fapplication%25253Djac%252526continue%25253Dhttps%2525253A%2525252F%2525252Fjira%2eatlassian%2ecom%2525252Fbrowse%2525252FCONF-26758%26application%3djac%26continue%3dhttps%253A%252F%252 (IT GOES ON AND ON past the max chars allowed in a post)