403 Forbidden Error Page during search query using apostrophe

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  • June 5, 2018 at 10:57 am #35859
    Living Miracles
    Participant

    Hi,

    When I do a search query in the WordPress “Posts” area search bar for something that contains an apostrophe (or single quotation mark), like “What’s underneath emotions”, I get a BPS Pro 404 Error page. I’m guessing it has something to do with the “CUSTOM CODE BPSQSE BPS QUERY STRING EXPLOITS” code in my .htaccess file, but removing certain things from there, didn’t resolve the issue.

    Could you tell me how to resolve this issue?

    Thank you!
    Jutta

    June 5, 2018 at 11:11 am #35860
    AITpro Admin
    Keymaster

    The single quote code character/apostrophe is 1 of the 5 most dangerous code characters. So obviously I would recommend that you do not whitelist/allow single quote code characters in searches on your website, but if you want to allow this then the information is below to allow/whitelist this.  A question mark should not be blocked by anything in BPS.  So maybe you Mod Security enabled.  I believe Mod Security blocks single quote characters/apostrophes and may also block question marks.  It is baffling to me that single quote characters are not automatically stripped out of searches.  WP strips out dangerous code characters everywhere else.

    Solution for allowing apostrophe’s/single quote code characters in search forms on the frontend of your website:  http://forum.ait-pro.com/forums/topic/apostrophe-single-quote-code-character/#post-6939

    Solution for allowing apostrophe’s/single quote code characters in search forms on the backend of your website:  http://forum.ait-pro.com/forums/topic/search-string-403-error/#post-14372

    June 5, 2018 at 11:14 am #35863
    Living Miracles
    Participant

    Ok, thank you so much! I appreciate that. I’ll just do my searches differently then. Obviously I can search for “underneath emotions” and that’ll bring up the right post for me as well 🙂

    Thank you!

    June 5, 2018 at 11:23 am #35864
    AITpro Admin
    Keymaster

    Wise choice.  If it is only you that is affected by searches and not visitors to your website then there is really no reason to search for grammatically correct search terms.  😉

    June 5, 2018 at 11:27 am #35865
    Living Miracles
    Participant

    Yes, it’s just in the backend where this occurs. If I do a search on the frontend that includes an apostrophe, there’s no issue at all 🙂

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