Invalid results for search criteria

[onetliviunicu]

Environment

Mozilla Firefox 45.0.1
Chrome 49.0.2623.112
Windows 7

Description

1. Login into application https://www.topcoder-qa.com/search/members/?q=javascript.

2. Mouse over search icon glass.

3. Complete search field with "a|a".

4. Press enter to perform the search.

actual: Oops! There was an error.

expected: do not display the error page because this can be a valid username.

see attach!

[callmekatootie]

@fnisen @nlitwin I am not sure if this user exists but the participant says so - a|a

I tried searching in the old site as well but it showed up no results.

[nlitwin]

This is a duplicate of the bug that special characters in the URL do not work - I believe they are using a pipe character in their search.

[onetliviunicu]

This text "a|a" can be considered as special characters?

[nlitwin]

On my screen, the character between the two a's looks like a pipe character, not a lowercase L. I copied and pasted it in an encoder and it comes out as %7C, which is the vertical bar / pipe character.

[onetliviunicu]

ok, thank you!