# Category slug containing Unicode characters results in redirect loop
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-slug-containing-unicode-characters-results-in-redirect-loop/169788
**Category:** Bug
**Created:** [November 11, 2020, 12:36am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-slug-containing-unicode-characters-results-in-redirect-loop/169788 "2020-11-11T00:36:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@dan-barbulescu](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dan-barbulescu)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2020, 12:36am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-slug-containing-unicode-characters-results-in-redirect-loop/169788/1 "2020-11-11T00:36:17Z")
I have enabled (some) Unicode characters in usernames and everything works as expected.
When I tried using Unicode characters in a category slug, it converted it to percent encoding and allowed me to save the changes, but I was no longer able to access the category topic list because I’d get `ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS`.
I seem to have fixed it using the Rails console:
> Category.find(_id_).update(slug: ‘slug-without-unicode’)
This isn’t a show-stopper, but it can break things, so I’d suggest it should either be fully implemented or guarded against.
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### Author:  [@simon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/simon)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2020, 1:21am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-slug-containing-unicode-characters-results-in-redirect-loop/169788/2 "2020-11-11T01:21:12Z")
> [@dan-barbulescu](#):
>
> This isn’t a show-stopper, but it can break things, so I’d suggest it should either be fully implemented or guarded against.
Some work has been done on this in the past, but I do not think the issue you ran into has been addressed. What I think happened is that you have the `slug generation method` set to ‘ascii’ and you directly entered a category slug that has non-ascii characters in it. I can reproduce that issue on my site with the `slug generation method` set to ‘ascii’ and the following text (`yetersizliği`) entered directly into the Category Slug field:
After saving the category:
Attempting to load that category list then fails.
If I don’t enter anything into the Category Slug field, DIscourse will create the slug correctly when the `slug generation method` is set to ‘ascii’.
With the `slug generation method` is set to ‘encoded’, Discourse handles creating the slug correctly both when I leave the Category Slug input empty and if I directly enter the non-ascii slug into the input.
So it seems that the issue is that when the `slug generation method` is set to ‘ascii’, non-ascii slugs can still be entered into the Category Slug field. This causes a redirect issue that can only be fixed from the Rails console.
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2020, 2:04am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-slug-containing-unicode-characters-results-in-redirect-loop/169788/3 "2020-11-11T02:04:57Z")
So what we need is a model validation on save here right?
I can take it.
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### Author:  [@dan-barbulescu](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dan-barbulescu)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2020, 2:28am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-slug-containing-unicode-characters-results-in-redirect-loop/169788/5 "2020-11-11T02:28:52Z")
> [@simon](#):
>
> What I think happened is that you have the `slug generation method` set to ‘ascii’ and you directly entered a category slug that has non-ascii characters in it.
That’s exactly what I did, I was editing a category that had been previously created—both its name and slug. I didn’t know about the `slug generation method` setting, and, even though I later found it to be set to `ascii`, the slug was encoded anyway.
This kind of coercion might make sense, but only if the encoded slug can be later recognized, ignoring the setting in a similar way.
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2020, 7:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-slug-containing-unicode-characters-results-in-redirect-loop/169788/6 "2020-11-12T19:53:03Z")
This should fix it
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/11277](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/11277)
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2020, 11:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-slug-containing-unicode-characters-results-in-redirect-loop/169788/7 "2020-12-13T23:32:47Z")
3 posts were split to a new topic: [Unicode username results in error loading profile page](https://meta.discourse.org/t/unicode-username-results-in-error-loading-profile-page/173182)
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2021, 5:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-slug-containing-unicode-characters-results-in-redirect-loop/169788/9 "2021-01-15T17:33:23Z")
The above PR was merged 🎉
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2021, 5:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-slug-containing-unicode-characters-results-in-redirect-loop/169788/10 "2021-01-15T17:33:27Z")