Troubleshooting the “Bad Message 414 — URI Too Long” Error in Sitecore SXA

 

Hey everyone,

I recently encountered an issue from one of my colleagues that I thought might be worth sharing. One of the developers on our team was hitting an error while trying to perform a build query from the Scope in an SXA-based Sitecore site. The specific URL in question was something like:

/sitecore/content/website/Settings/Scopes/Scope1

At first glance, I thought the issue was related to security permissions. I suggested checking the security settings for the relevant user group, feeling pretty confident in my assumption. 😎 However, after a deeper dive, I realized that there was more going on under the hood.

Initial Investigation

My colleague confirmed that the user had all the necessary permissions according to our team, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. I decided to test it with my own credentials (admin access, of course 😜), and I was able to see the results without any issues. This raised a red flag for me — if the permissions were fine for the user, then why was I able to see the results while they couldn’t?

This led me to think that security indexing might be playing a role here, since admins generally bypass certain security checks. After checking everything again and reindexing, I was still stuck. So, I took the next logical step — investigating the logs.

Solving the Puzzle: The “Bad Message 414 — URI Too Long” Error

When I checked the logs and tried to run the query directly through Solr’s console, I was met with the following error message:

<h1>Bad Message 414</h1>
 <pre>reason: URI Too Long</pre>

At this point, I started digging into what “Bad Message 414 — URI Too Long” actually meant. The “414” error indicates that the query string exceeds the maximum allowed length for HTTP GET requests. In Sitecore SXA, this can happen when scopes or filters are applied, generating long query strings that exceed the allowed limit.

Why Does This Happen?

In Sitecore SXA, when you’re working with scopes and search queries, the system often generates a URL with a long query string. This can be problematic because HTTP GET requests have a length limit for the URL (usually around 8192 characters). If the query string becomes too long (which can happen with complex search filters or scopes), Solr will reject the request, and you’ll get the “URI Too Long” error.

So, what can you do about it?

Solutions to Fix the Issue

There are two primary solutions to resolve the “Bad Message 414” error in Sitecore SXA:

1. Switch to HTTP POST Method

The first option is to switch your query to use the HTTP POST method instead of GET. POST requests don’t have the same URL length limitations as GET requests, which can help avoid the “URI Too Long” error. To do this, you’ll need to update your query handling to send data via POST rather than GET.

2. Increase Solr’s Request Header Size

If switching to POST doesn’t work or isn’t a viable option for your implementation, you can increase the maximum allowed size for Solr’s request headers. This solution worked for me, and it’s relatively simple to implement.

Here’s how to increase Solr’s request header size:

1. Locate the Jetty Configuration File
    Open the jetty.xml file in your Solr installation directory. The typical path for this file is:
    SOLR_HOME/server/etc/jetty.xml
2. Modify the Request Header Size
    In the jetty.xml file, locate the following block:
    <Set name=”requestHeaderSize”>
    <Property name=”solr.jetty.request.header.size” default=”8192" />
    </Set>
3. Increase the Header Size
    Change the value from 8192 (the default size) to something larger. For example:
    <Set name=”requestHeaderSize”>
    <Property name=”solr.jetty.request.header.size” default=”29000" />
    </Set>
4. Save and Restart
    Save the file and restart both Solr and Sitecore.

After applying this update, I was able to resolve the issue and the query started working properly!

Conclusion

So, that’s how I tracked down and fixed the “Bad Message 414 — URI Too Long” error in Sitecore SXA. If you’re ever in a similar situation, here are the steps I took:

• Check security settings (permissions and indexing)
• Investigate the error logs
• Run the query directly in Solr’s console to identify the root cause
• Either switch to the POST method or increase Solr’s request header size

I hope this helps you avoid a similar headache if you ever run into this issue! Let me know if you have any questions, or if there’s anything I missed. Good luck with your Sitecore projects!

Stay cool,

I hope you enjoy this Sitecore blog. Stay tuned for more Sitecore related articles.

Till that happy Sitecoring :)

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