RSS Feed Macro shows Error rendering macro 'rss'
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
User adds a RSS Feed Macro to their page. Feed site is authorized in the allowlist. But when accessing page to read the RSS Feed, the following error message is shown:
Error rendering macro 'rss'
com.atlassian.confluence.macro.MacroExecutionException: Illegal character in path at index 73: <feed URL>Diagnosis
Environment
Issue can occur on any browser and operating system
- It occurs with only specific RSS Feeds. Other feeds work fine on the same page or environment
Diagnostic Steps
On a RSS Feed validator, such as W3C Feed Validation Service, the feed is shown to not validate properly:
However, the feed works fine on other readers, such as http://feeder.co
Cause
The feed can be malformed, containing invalid characters in its code, such a new line in the end of the URL.
Resolution
A definitive solution could only be applied by the publisher of the feed itself, so that it validates against RSS Feed Validators.
Workaround
A version of the RSS Feed Macro was developed to bypass the failing validation. It can be downloaded here: confluence-html-macros-3.0.1.jar
To apply it, you should:
- Shutdown Confluence server
- Ensure you have a valid backup
- Navigate to folder
<confluence-install>/confluence/WEB-INF/atlassian-bundled-plugins - Remove or rename the current
confluence-html-macros-3.0.x.jar - Place the new confluence-html-macros-3.0.1.jar on the folder
- Start Confluence
Caution
- This version of the RSS Feed Macro will not validate inconsistent URLs, so it may display broken links
- You should follow your Change Management Process to perform this operation
- If your confluence-html-macros-3.0.x is 3.0.2 or above, you should consult Atlassian Support to check if a newer version of this workaround is available
- This confluence-html-macros-3.0.1.jar library is not supported by Atlassian Support. Use it at your own risk