Apple Support users hit by 'Invalid URL' issue when seeking help

Apple Support, and an Invalid URL error code

Apple customers seeking help through the iPhone maker's support pages are occasionally seeing errors when looking for answers, in what seems to be a minor web server issue.

Users visiting Apple's online support pages may occasionally find they cannot access some URLs in the archive. Posts to Twitter revealed some users are not getting the expected support page, but an error instead.

In most instances, this takes the form of a notification stating "Invalid URL" and "The requested URL [no URL]' is invalid," followed by a reference number, tweets initially reported by 9to5Mac state. In a small number of instances, a Gateway Timeout issue is seen instead.

Long-time Internet users will be familiar with the occasional notice that a URL is unavailable, even on a temporary basis. However, it's unusual for Apple to offer this sort of error at this frequency, outside of a full-scale outage.

While some members of the AppleInsider editorial team could recreate the problem simply by browsing the support pages, most URLs continue to work normally.

Given the problem exists only for a small number of URLs, and that there are relatively few Twitter complaints on the matter, it seems to be a highly limited issue. One that, at the time of publication, isn't serious enough for Apple to update its System Status page, or one that Apple's support teams have yet to officially confirm.