Importing from CSV results in 404 Error

Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian apps on the Data Center platform.

Note that this KB was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center KBs for non-Data-Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. 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

Summary

Symptoms

While importing data from CSV using either External System Import (for admin) or Bulk Create (for non-admin), a 404 error page appears after specifying the CSV file and moving on to project mapping. The following messages can be found in atlassian-jira.log:

2016-04-20 11:28:28,694 http-nio-13032-exec-3 INFO <user-admin> 688x77142x3 vh2i41 158.166.145.77,158.167.134.6,10.226.15.83 /secure/admin/CsvSetupPage.jspa [jira.web.action.XsrfErrorAction] The security token is missing for '<user-admin>'. User-Agent : 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/38.0'

and catalina.<date>.log:

Apr 20, 2016 10:51:52 AM org.apache.catalina.connector.Response sendRedirect WARNING: Failed to redirect to [https://<base_url>/secure/admin/CsvProjectMappingsPage!default.jspa?externalSystem=com.atlassian.jira.plugins.jira-importers-plugin:csvImporter&alt_token=AM6Z-FOEK-VHM0-47I5|e369c6c814fbb743ce8ef914084ecde46d55b99a|lin] java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Illegal character in query at index 195: https://<base_url>/secure/admin/CsvProjectMappingsPage!default.jspa?externalSystem=com.atlassian.jira.plugins.jira-importers-plugin:csvImporter&alt_token=AM6Z-FOEK-VHM0-47I5|e369c6c814fbb743ce8ef914084ecde46d55b99a|lin at java.net.URI.create(URI.java:852) at org.apache.catalina.connector.Response.sendRedirect(Response.java:1384) ... Caused by: java.net.URISyntaxException: Illegal character in query at index 195: https://<base_url>/secure/admin/CsvProjectMappingsPage!default.jspa?externalSystem=com.atlassian.jira.plugins.jira-importers-plugin:csvImporter&alt_token=AM6Z-FOEK-VHM0-47I5|e369c6c814fbb743ce8ef914084ecde46d55b99a|lin

Diagnosis

⚠️ All JIRA versions using any of the following Tomcat versions are affected: 7.0.67, 7.0.68, 8.0.30, 8.0.31, 8.0.32.

  • This usually happens in JIRA WAR editions where Tomcat can be upgraded separately (JIRA WAR is only available in JIRA 6.x and below)

  • Early 7.x standalone versions are not affected as they do not use any of the above Tomcat versions (JIRA 7.x is bundled with Tomcat 8.x)

  • JIRA 7.1.7 is the only affected version in 7.x series as it's bundled with Tomcat 8.0.32.

Cause

This is caused by a bug in Tomcat, which does not redirect a request correctly if the request URI contains blank spaces:

Solution

Resolution

For JIRA WAR, upgrade Tomcat to any of the following versions:

  • 7.0.69 onwards for 7.0.x

  • 8.0.33 onwards for 8.0.x

  • 9.0.0.M4 onwards for 9.0.x

    ⚠️note that Tomcat 9.0.x is not supported by JIRA yet

For users using JIRA 7.1.7 standalone, the following bug ticket has been raised to address this:

Updated on September 26, 2025

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