Disallowed Key Characters on Engineering Websites

By itecsadmin

Disallowed Key Characters on Engineering Websites

The error message “disallowed key characters” usually shows up because your browser has picked up a cookie with Unicode characters. Cookie names are randomly created by lots of pages, so sometimes the name will contain atypical Unicode characters, sometimes not. Because tampering with cookie names is a potential means of browser hacking, our scholarship application errs on the side of caution and rejects any request that contains these non-ascii characters in the cookie names.

The use of Unicode characters in cookie names is a relatively recent development that we are still studying. We can only offer you a workaround at this time. Simply clear your browser cache and re-authenticate into the scholarship system. A fresh login and going directly back to the application should clear the error.

Please send email to eoshelp@ncsu.edu if clearing your browser cache does not fix the problem.

How to clear your browser cache for Google Chrome:

  1. Press CTRL + Shift + Delete in Windows or Linux, or Command + Shift + Delete on Mac OS X.
  2. From the “Obliterate the following items from:” list, select from the beginning of time.
  3. Select Cookies and other site and plugin data.
  4. Click the Clear browsing data button, and Chrome will clear your cache.

How to clear your browser cache for Mozilla Firefox:

  1. If the menu bar is hidden, press Alt to make it visible.
  2. From the History menu, select Clear Recent History.
  3. From the “Time range to clear” drop-down menu, select Everything.
  4. Next to Details, click the down arrow to choose which elements of the history to clear and select Cookies.
  5. Click Clear Now.

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