“SafeQueryPropertiesTemplateUrl” error when calling the SharePoint _api

If you call the SharePoint 2013 REST API in your applications ensure that any requests originating from the client are sent from the current web base URL to avoid returning a SafeQueryPropertiesTemplateUrl error.

If the current site is
https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/mysitecollection/subsite1/subsite2 then it is very important that you submit API requests as
https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/mysitecollection/subsite1/subsite2/_api
and NOT as any of:

• https://tenant.sharepoint.com/_api or
• https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/mysitecollection/_api or even
• https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/mysitecollection/subsite1/_api

The reason for this is that the current user must have access to the site addressed by the base URL of the API request (the bit before the _api). If the user cannot access this site then the request will fail. Unfortunately it doesn’t fail in the manner you might expect (i.e. a 401 access denied exception). A request that fails in this manner will return a 500 error. The specific exception details are as follows:

Exception class:
Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.REST.SearchServiceException

Exception message:
The SafeQueryPropertiesTemplateUrl "The SafeQueryPropertiesTemplateUrl "{0}" is not a valid URL." is not a valid URL.

Paul.

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