Path Problem with the REST API Browser

We had a look at our APIs and indeed, as soon as we launched any REST call, the response is always 404.

We realized that the browser shows a wrong path to our REST services. Instead of projectdoc/1/document it shows projectdoc/1/projectdoc/1/document, having the first two path elements duplicated.

This is the case with REST API Browser version 3.2.2 and Confluence 6.14.1. Since the REST API Browser is not officially supporting the latest Confluence version (at the time of writing), we checked with the latest supported version 6.13.2. The result was the same. But the same REST API Browser on Confluence 5.10.9 did not show this issue. Also 6.12.1, 6.11.1, 6.10.2 and probably all previous version of Confluence 6.x do work and show the correct paths:

The problem is also shown for apps provided by Confluence, like the REST API of the AppLinks OAuth plugin.

The Cause

Digging a little deeper we realized that the problem went away for our app when we removed the package element from our configuration with the REST plugin module in the atlassian-plugin.xml.

This is the original configuration:

  <rest name="projectdoc Web-API" 
        key="projectdocWebAPI" 
        path="/projectdoc"
        version="1">
    <description>Web access to projectdoc resources.</description>
    <package>de.smartics.projectdoc.extension.webapi</package>
  </rest>

Now with the package element removed, the paths are rendered correctly and calling the REST API does no longer return HTTP 404 responses.

  <rest name="projectdoc Web-API" 
        key="projectdocWebAPI" 
        path="/projectdoc" 
        version="1">
    <description>Web access to projectdoc resources.</description>
  </rest>

Checking with the AppLinks OAuth plugin our hypothesis seems to be supported.

<rest key="applinksRestV2OAuth" 
      path="/applinks-oauth" 
      version="1.0" 
      description=
        "Provides REST endpoints for interacting with the AppLinks OAuth plugin">
  <package>com.atlassian.applinks.oauth.rest</package>
</rest>

Plugins that do not suffer from this all have no package element in their configuration.

The Workaround

Removing the package element from the REST configuration in the atlassian-plugin.xml makes the problem go away.

The downside of this workaround is that the browser would no longer render the documentation for the REST services.

Note that this is only experienced if you use the REST API Browser on versions of Confluence that actually produce this problem. On any Confluence version using an alternative REST client, for instance curl, does not produce this issue.

Ticket

We filed a bug report to Atlassian and they could reproduce the problem. Atlassian created a ticket CONFSERVER-57887 to track this issue.

You may would like to vote for it in case you are using the REST API Browser frequently with REST APIs that show this issue.

Resources

More information on how to use the Web API Extension for the projectdoc Toolbox with curl.