{"id":304,"date":"2008-09-21T02:30:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-21T02:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brainlitter.itgroove.net\/2008\/09\/21\/sharepoint-illegal-characters\/"},"modified":"2008-09-21T02:30:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-21T02:30:00","slug":"sharepoint-illegal-characters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regroove.ca\/brainlitter\/2008\/09\/21\/sharepoint-illegal-characters\/","title":{"rendered":"SharePoint Illegal Characters"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Ran into a very frustrating issue tonight, where my Web Part Connections were breaking, with very little logging\/diagnostic info returned. In fact, depending on the scenario, the most informative information SharePoint (well, ASP.NET really) gave me was stuff like this…<\/p>\n

An error occurred while parsing EntityName. Line x<\/em><\/strong>, position y<\/em><\/strong>. (X and Y will be different for you).<\/p>\n

For me, it was that column names for a list (the list works fine) had an Ampersand in it – you know, one of these &”. Again, it was fine in a column, but broke the crap out of my web part connections.<\/p>\n

So, I had a look and it appears use of ANY of these characters, in Column Names, Files, Folders or Site Names is generally a really bad idea, if you want headaches like I just experienced. Here they are:<\/p>\n

# % & * { } : ? \/ + | ” . _<\/strong><\/p>\n

Additional Notes<\/u>:<\/p>\n