alexreisner/geocoder · error · ConfigurationError

Error parsing # proxy URL: '#

Error message

Error parsing #{protocol.upcase} proxy URL: '#{proxy_url}'

What it means

Raised by Geocoder::Lookups::Base#http_client when the configured :http_proxy (or :https_proxy) string cannot be parsed as a URI. Geocoder wraps URI::InvalidURIError into a Geocoder::ConfigurationError naming the protocol and the offending URL.

Solutions

1. Fix the proxy URL so it is a valid URI, e.g. 'http://user:pass@host:port'
2. URL-encode special characters in proxy credentials (URI.encode_www_form_component)
3. Verify environment variables (HTTP_PROXY etc.) feeding the config are well-formed
4. Test with URI.parse(proxy_url) in a console before configuring

Example fix

// before
Geocoder.configure(http_proxy: 'proxy mycorp com:3128')
// after
Geocoder.configure(http_proxy: 'http://proxy.mycorp.com:3128')

URI.parse(proxy_url) # call before configuring; rescue URI::InvalidURIError

def valid_proxy?(url); !!(URI.parse(url =~ %r{^https?://} ? url : "http://#{url}")); rescue URI::InvalidURIError; false; end

begin
  Geocoder.search(q)
rescue Geocoder::ConfigurationError => e
  raise if e.message !~ /proxy/i
  Geocoder.configure(http_proxy: ENV.fetch('HTTP_PROXY'))
end

When it happens

Trigger: Setting Geocoder.configure(http_proxy: 'not a url') or an https_proxy value with illegal characters (spaces, missing scheme handled by prefixing but still malformed, stray braces), so URI.parse raises URI::InvalidURIError.

Common situations: Copy-pasting proxy URLs with quotes, whitespace or credentials containing unencoded special characters; reading the proxy from env vars that are empty or malformed.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid URL" errors: why new URL(), URI.parse, and reqwest::Url reject your string — missing scheme, whitespace, and bad path format — this error's family across 39 libraries.

Related errors

• Geocoder tried to log a message with an invalid log level.
• Please specify a valid lookup for Geocoder
• Please specify valid logger for Geocoder. Logger specified…
• region_code '# ' is invalid. use one of #…
• The # API requires a key to be configured: #

AI-assisted analysis of alexreisner/geocoder@c10bd70121 (2026-09-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/603c7fbc4ef9923a. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at lib/geocoder/lookups/base.rb:129

      ##
      # An object with configuration data for this particular lookup.
      #
      def configuration
        Geocoder.config_for_lookup(handle)
      end

      ##
      # Object used to make HTTP requests.
      #
      def http_client
        proxy_name = "#{protocol}_proxy"
        if proxy = configuration.send(proxy_name)
          proxy_url = !!(proxy =~ /^#{protocol}/) ? proxy : protocol + '://' + proxy
          begin
            uri = URI.parse(proxy_url)
          rescue URI::InvalidURIError
            raise ConfigurationError,
              "Error parsing #{protocol.upcase} proxy URL: '#{proxy_url}'"
          end
          Net::HTTP::Proxy(uri.host, uri.port, uri.user, uri.password)
        else
          Net::HTTP
        end
      end

      ##
      # Geocoder::Result object or nil on timeout or other error.
      #
      def results(query)
        fail
      end

      def query_url_params(query)
        query.options[:params] || {}
      end

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