Tomcat: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Invalid character found in method name. HTTP method names must be tokens
I am getting below stack trace when I am deploying my application in a multi-server Apache Tomcat 8 environment. I am getting this error frequently, and it seems it is blocking the tomcat thread:
INFO [http-nio-80-exec-4461] org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process Error parsing HTTP request header
Note: further occurrences of HTTP header parsing errors will be logged at DEBUG level.
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Invalid character found in method name. HTTP method names must be tokens
at org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractNioInputBuffer.parseRequestLine(AbstractNioInputBuffer.java:233)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1017)
at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:684)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1524)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(NioEndpoint.java:1480)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Can any one direct me how to troubleshoot or narrow down such an exeption? I am not getting any reference to any of my application source files. I tried to google around, and in of the links it said, you are trying to access http url through https, which seems unlikely. I am not getting this error, when the application runs on a single Tomcat 8 instance. I get this only in a multi-server environment.
I am also sharing the meta tags I have embedded on each page, if that helps to identify the cause.
<%
response.setHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache");
response.setHeader("Cache-Control", "no-store");
response.setDateHeader("Expires", 0);
response.setHeader("Pragma", "no-cache");
%>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, minimum-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
I am also using the following in a few pages, which basically is same as above:
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<meta http-equiv="Expires" content="-1" />
<meta http-equiv="Cache-Control" content="private" />
<meta http-equiv="Cache-Control" content="no-store" />
<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache" />
Even if anyone helps in giving a direction to my troubleshooting attempt, that will be useful, as currently I have no idea where to look into.
Answer
This exception can occur when you try to execute HTTPS request from client on endpoint which isn't HTTPS enabled. Client will encrypt request data when server is expecting raw data.