Confluence URLs do not render due to Apache URI escaping
Platform notice: Server and Data Center only. This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Server and Data Center platforms.
Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Problem
When Confluence sits behind an Apache httpd server, links may not work and the application will complain about insufficient authorization or broken links.
Or:
Attempting to login into Confluence failed with following error as the last segment of the URL contains os_destination=%252Findex.action
The requested URL //index.action was not found on this server.Cause
Apache httpd re-encodes the URL encoded GET request variable that represents the target destination page (%2F representing / will become %252F). That is the % will be encoded on its own. When the authentication engine decodes the variable, the string won't match any page in the application context. There is a bug report regarding the additional slash that is being tracked with Apache at https://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=39746
Resolution
Add NE to the RewriteRule in the Confluence configuration section.
See