Query string encoding issue

OK, I've tried making the following view, and I cannot reproduce the character encoding issue. I've added the configuration below. If you could, please send me the modules and configuration of the view, so I can get an idea of how you are building the URL.

langcode: en
status: true
dependencies:
  config:
    - core.entity_view_mode.node.teaser
    - system.menu.main
  module:
    - node
    - user
    - views_add_button
id: vab_dev
label: 'VAB Development'
module: views
description: ''
tag: ''
base_table: node_field_data
base_field: nid
core: 8.x
display:
  default:
    display_plugin: default
    id: default
    display_title: Master
    position: 0
    display_options:
      access:
        type: perm
        options:
          perm: 'access content'
      cache:
        type: tag
        options: {  }
      query:
        type: views_query
        options:
          disable_sql_rewrite: false
          distinct: false
          replica: false
          query_comment: ''
          query_tags: {  }
      exposed_form:
        type: basic
        options:
          submit_button: Apply
          reset_button: false
          reset_button_label: Reset
          exposed_sorts_label: 'Sort by'
          expose_sort_order: true
          sort_asc_label: Asc
          sort_desc_label: Desc
      pager:
        type: mini
        options:
          items_per_page: 10
          offset: 0
          id: 0
          total_pages: null
          expose:
            items_per_page: false
            items_per_page_label: 'Items per page'
            items_per_page_options: '5, 10, 25, 50'
            items_per_page_options_all: false
            items_per_page_options_all_label: '- All -'
            offset: false
            offset_label: Offset
          tags:
            previous: ‹‹
            next: ››
      style:
        type: default
      row:
        type: 'entity:node'
        options:
          view_mode: teaser
      fields:
        title:
          id: title
          table: node_field_data
          field: title
          entity_type: node
          entity_field: title
          label: ''
          alter:
            alter_text: false
            make_link: false
            absolute: false
            trim: false
            word_boundary: false
            ellipsis: false
            strip_tags: false
            html: false
          hide_empty: false
          empty_zero: false
          settings:
            link_to_entity: true
          plugin_id: field
          relationship: none
          group_type: group
          admin_label: ''
          exclude: false
          element_type: ''
          element_class: ''
          element_label_type: ''
          element_label_class: ''
          element_label_colon: true
          element_wrapper_type: ''
          element_wrapper_class: ''
          element_default_classes: true
          empty: ''
          hide_alter_empty: true
          click_sort_column: value
          type: string
          group_column: value
          group_columns: {  }
          group_rows: true
          delta_limit: 0
          delta_offset: 0
          delta_reversed: false
          delta_first_last: false
          multi_type: separator
          separator: ', '
          field_api_classes: false
      filters:
        status:
          value: '1'
          table: node_field_data
          field: status
          plugin_id: boolean
          entity_type: node
          entity_field: status
          id: status
          expose:
            operator: ''
          group: 1
      sorts:
        created:
          id: created
          table: node_field_data
          field: created
          order: DESC
          entity_type: node
          entity_field: created
          plugin_id: date
          relationship: none
          group_type: group
          admin_label: ''
          exposed: false
          expose:
            label: ''
          granularity: second
      title: 'VAB Development'
      header:
        views_add_button:
          id: views_add_button
          table: views
          field: views_add_button
          relationship: none
          group_type: group
          admin_label: ''
          empty: false
          tokenize: 0
          type: node+article
          render_plugin: ''
          access_plugin: ''
          context: ''
          button_text: '+ Add Article'
          button_classes: 'btn btn-success button'
          button_attributes: ''
          button_access_denied:
            value: ''
            format: basic_html
          button_prefix:
            value: ''
            format: basic_html
          button_suffix:
            value: ''
            format: basic_html
          query_string: 'edit[body][0][value]=123'
          destination: 1
          plugin_id: views_add_button_area
      footer: {  }
      empty: {  }
      relationships: {  }
      arguments: {  }
      display_extenders: {  }
    cache_metadata:
      max-age: -1
      contexts:
        - 'languages:language_content'
        - 'languages:language_interface'
        - url.query_args
        - 'user.node_grants:view'
        - user.permissions
      tags: {  }
  page_1:
    display_plugin: page
    id: page_1
    display_title: Page
    position: 1
    display_options:
      display_extenders: {  }
      path: vab-development
      menu:
        type: normal
        title: 'VAB Development'
        description: ''
        expanded: false
        parent: ''
        weight: 0
        context: '0'
        menu_name: main
    cache_metadata:
      max-age: -1
      contexts:
        - 'languages:language_content'
        - 'languages:language_interface'
        - url.query_args
        - 'user.node_grants:view'
        - user.permissions
      tags: {  }

I have not experienced this with a single query string, but when trying to add multiples joined by an ampersand.

Update the above to query_string: 'edit[body][0][value]=123&plan=181', and it becomes edit[body][0][value]=123&amp%3Bplan=181 and does not work. Firefox leaves the first string alone and converts the ampersand to HTML entity, Chrome converts all of the punctuation characters.

@jason.bell, thanks for the insight. I'll try out that case.

I am adding a "Browser compatibility" tag to this, as its working fine for me in Firefox, even with something complex like this:

edit[body][0][value]=123&edit[body][0]["format"]=321

However, This does not work at all in Chrome. I'll see what I need to do to encode correctly.

OK, figured it out. I needed to change how rendering works for the module (namely, the link has to be converted to a markup and string replacement performed), and I added bracket replacement only. We could do other characters, but I do not want to open it up to conversion of any character, to prevent from malicious characters being decoded.

The issue was, I was returning a render array for the link, and during conversion it appears that certain browsers encode the HTML entities in a query string. By returning a markup, I can enforce encoding of brackets.

Also, I tested the prefix/suffix HTML, and these are working the same as before.

@laboratory.mike, how did you fix? version 1.8 does not have the fix above.