Article - CS270061
Troubleshooting "Error occurred while validating HTTP header" Messages in ThingWorx Platform
Modified: 31-Oct-2025
Applies To
- ThingWorx Platform 7.0 to 10.0
Description
- One of the following error messages is logged in either the ThingWorx ApplicationLog or ErrorLog:
Error occurred while validating HTTP header: authorization Error occurred while validating HTTP header: referer Error occurred while validating HTTP header: cookie Error occurred while validating HTTP header: subject Error occurred while validating HTTP header: remote_user Error occurred while validating HTTP header: uid
- How to troubleshoot ESAPI errors
- Too many errors reported in <tomcat_home>\logs\thingworx-foundation-stdout logs
- <ThingworxStorage>\logs\ApplicationLog.log shows the following:
[L: ERROR] [O: E.c.t.s.f.ValidatingHttpRequest] [I: ] [U: <User>] [S: ] [T: https-jsse-nio-443-exec-5] Error occurred while validating HTTP header: subject WARN IntrusionDetector:65 - [SECURITY FAILURE Anonymous:null@unknown -> /ExampleApplication/IntrusionDetector] Invalid input: context=HTTP header value: <Invalid Header>, type(HTTPHeaderValue)=^[a-zA-Z0-9()\-=\*\.\?;,+\/:&_ % ¡-'"]*$, input=<Invalid Header Value> org.owasp.esapi.errors.ValidationException: HTTP header value: remote_user: Invalid input. Please conform to regex ^[a-zA-Z0-9()\-=\*\.\?;,+\/:&_ % ¡-'"]*$ with a maximum length of 2000 at org.owasp.esapi.reference.validation.StringValidationRule.checkWhitelist(StringValidationRule.java:144) at org.owasp.esapi.reference.validation.StringValidationRule.checkWhitelist(StringValidationRule.java:160) at org.owasp.esapi.reference.validation.StringValidationRule.getValid(StringValidationRule.java:284) at com.thingworx.security.filter.ESAPICustomValidator.getValidInput(ESAPICustomValidator.java:29) at com.thingworx.security.filter.ValidatingHttpRequest.getValidInput(ValidatingHttpRequest.java:127) at com.thingworx.security.filter.ValidatingHttpRequest.getValidHeaderInput(ValidatingHttpRequest.java:143) at com.thingworx.security.filter.ValidatingHttpRequest.getHeader(ValidatingHttpRequest.java:85) ...
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