SonarSource/sonarqube · error · BadRequestException

' ' contains the invalid character ' '. Azure DevOps names…

Error message

'%s' contains the invalid character '%s'. Azure DevOps names must not contain any of: \ / : < > | ? *

What it means

AlmSettingsSupport.validateAzureName checks that Azure DevOps name fields (project, repository, etc.) contain none of the characters \ / : < > | ? *, which Azure DevOps forbids. On violation it logs a warning and throws BadRequestException naming the field and the offending character.

Solutions

Remove the reported invalid character from the field value named in the message
Use the Azure DevOps project/repository display name, not a path with slashes
Sanitize user-supplied names in automation before calling the API
Rename the project/repo in Azure DevOps if its actual name contains forbidden characters

Example fix

// before
almSettings.updateAzure("ado", "TeamProject/SubProject");
// after
almSettings.updateAzure("ado", "TeamProject SubProject");

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

private static final Pattern INVALID = Pattern.compile("[\\\\/:<>|?*]");
void assertValidAzureName(String v) { Matcher m = INVALID.matcher(v); if (m.find()) throw new IllegalArgumentException("contains invalid character " + m.group()); }

Type guard

boolean isValidAzureName(String v) { return v != null && !Pattern.compile("[\\\\/:<>|?*]").matcher(v).find(); }

Try / catch

try { support.validateAzureName("project", name); } catch (BadRequestException e) { sanitizeNameAndRetry(); }

Prevention

Sanitize Azure names against \\ / : < > | ? * before API calls
Use display names, never slash-separated paths
Document the character restriction wherever Azure settings are collected

When it happens

Trigger: Creating/updating an Azure DevOps ALM setting where the field value passed to validateAzureName contains a forbidden character; the matcher finds the first invalid char and it is embedded in the 400 message.

Common situations: Azure project names containing slashes or spaces-separated paths; automation copying full repo paths ('repo/subdir') into the repository field; names with special characters from templating systems.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Must be a positive integer", "Invalid value", "Unsupported": the invalid-argument-value error family, when a library rejects the value you pass — this error's family across 35 libraries.

Parsing and encoding errors: unexpected token, malformed input — why parsers reject input and how to find the real culprit.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of SonarSource/sonarqube@184c821202 (2026-09-09). Data as JSON: /api/errors/69f1f7722aba9adb. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at server/sonar-webserver-webapi/src/main/java/org/sonar/server/almsettings/ws/AlmSettingsSupport.java:145

    }
  }

  public void validateUrl(@Nullable String url) {
    if (url == null || HttpUrl.parse(url) == null) {
      LOG.warn("Rejected an invalid DevOps Platform URL");
      throw BadRequestException.create(format("Invalid URL: '%s'.", url));
    }
  }

  public void validateAzureName(String fieldName, String value) {
    Matcher matcher = AZURE_NAME_INVALID_CHARS.matcher(value);
    if (matcher.find()) {
      String invalidChar = matcher.group();
      if (LOG.isWarnEnabled()) {
        LOG.warn("Rejected Azure DevOps name for field '{}': contains invalid character '{}'", fieldName, invalidChar);
      }
      throw BadRequestException.create(format(
        "'%s' contains the invalid character '%s'. Azure DevOps names must not contain any of: \\ / : < > | ? *",
        fieldName, invalidChar));
    }
  }

  public ProjectDto getProjectAsAdmin(DbSession dbSession, String projectKey) {
    return getProject(dbSession, projectKey, ADMIN);
  }

  public ProjectDto getProject(DbSession dbSession, String projectKey, ProjectPermission projectPermission) {
    ProjectDto project = componentFinder.getProjectByKey(dbSession, projectKey);
    userSession.checkEntityPermission(projectPermission, project);
    return project;
  }

  public record NewAzureSetting(String key, String url, String personalAccessToken) {
  }

  public record NewGitlabSetting(String key, String url, String personalAccessToken) {

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