# \[IGN-15025\] Prevent invalid character | in tag provider name

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ign-15025-prevent-invalid-character-in-tag-provider-name/112587>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Created:** [December 3, 2025, 12:10pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ign-15025-prevent-invalid-character-in-tag-provider-name/112587 "2025-12-03T12:10:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jahb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@jahb](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/jahb)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2025, 12:10pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ign-15025-prevent-invalid-character-in-tag-provider-name/112587/1 "2025-12-03T12:10:22Z")

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We have a situation where a user accidentally used a ‘|‘ character in the name of a tag provider and now the gateway throws null pointer exceptions and it won’t start up.  
And there seems to be no way of fixing it?

This was with 8.3.0 - I could not find anything in changelogs to determine whether this has been fixed in a later version?

Couldn’t it be fixed so that the system prevents storing an invalid character when the consequences are so dramatic? Maybe a whitelist of acceptable characters?

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/9/f/9f5aa80071e576e7e33c3aac51c8fea7caeb6229.png)

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/2/5/25dcbc26239552533aa0be36bd4e86fe1d8b1d82.png)

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**Author:** ![Kyle.Chase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kyle.Chase](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Kyle.Chase)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2025, 2:21pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ign-15025-prevent-invalid-character-in-tag-provider-name/112587/2 "2025-12-03T14:21:50Z")

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To rectify this issue and get your system starting again, you can rename the folder for that tag provider in `data/config/resources/core/ignition/tag-provider`

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**Author:** ![kcollins](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/kcollins/32/19646_2.png) [@kcollins](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/kcollins)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2025, 2:26pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ign-15025-prevent-invalid-character-in-tag-provider-name/112587/3 "2025-12-03T14:26:38Z")

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> [@Kyle.Chase](#):
>
> To rectify this issue and get your system starting again, you can rename the folder for that tag provider in `data/config/resources/core/ignition/tag-provider`

I just tested it in 8.3.1 and could still reproduce the issue, though only on Windows. As Kyle mentions, rename the folder from `foo%7c` (which will be what you'll see if the tag provider is named `foo|`) to `foo`. Then go to _Platform -\> System -\> Modes_ and click the _Scan File System_ button in the upper-right. This will re-read the config and start up the tag provider, now with a valid name.

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**Author:** ![jahb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@jahb](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/jahb)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2025, 8:02am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ign-15025-prevent-invalid-character-in-tag-provider-name/112587/4 "2025-12-05T08:02:50Z")

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Thanks for the help Kyle\_Chase1 and kcollins1 ! Your suggested fix did indeed solve it.

However, we needed to manually correct multiple different folders with the wrong tag provider name, because it was used by different components (store and forward, etc). Some of these folders contained a config.json file which also referenced the name with | in it