topic Re: Content Monitor reload failure to Unexpected character encountered in Management & Governance

Content Monitor reload failure to Unexpected character encountered

kellyyyyyyyyy — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 03:35:55 GMT

Hi everyone,

I recently upgraded our Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows from Nov 2024 to Nov 2025 Patch2. Everything seemed fine until I noticed that the Reload Content Monitor task started failing consistently.

Upon checking the script log, I identified the error occurs during the Connect To 'monitor_apps_REST_app' step:

Error: Unexpected character encountered while parsing value: <. Path '', line 0, position 0.

I have already searched the community and tried the following official support solutions:

1. Create a second Virtual Proxy allowing Windows authentication: https://community.qlik.com/t5/Official-Support-Articles/Qlik-Sense-Enterprise-on-Windows-Unexpected-character/ta-p/1714588

2. How to configure Certificate Authentication for Qlik Sense Monitoring Applications: https://community.qlik.com/t5/Official-Support-Articles/How-to-configure-Certificate-Authentication-for-Qlik-Sense/ta-p/1799913

The confusing part, While the Content Monitor fails, both the License Monitor and Operations Monitor are reloading successfully without any issues. Since these apps typically rely on similar REST connection logic, I am unsure why only the Content Monitor is struggling.

Has anyone encountered this? Any suggestions on what else I should check would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

Re: Content Monitor reload failure to Unexpected character encountered

VictorGonzalezFaria — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 16:35:31 GMT

@kellyyyyyyyyy you are right that the Apps all use the monitor_apps_REST_app, but note that the Content Monitor uses variation of it in the API requests by using WITH CONNECTION. That doesn't work with certificate authentication.

The alternative is to create a JWT-based Virtual Proxy as described here: Qlik Sense: How to set up JWT authentication - Qlik Community - 1716226.

Once the Virtual Proxy is crated, we would create a new REST Data Connection that uses that Virtual Proxy, and let the App use it. During the creation of the Data connection, you can use the following:

URL: https://<machineName/fqdn>/<jwtVirtualProxyPrefix>/qrs/app/full
Certificate validation set to "Skip Server Certificate Validation"
Query params:
- xrfkey: abcdefg123456789
Query headers:
- X-Qlik-XRFkey: abcdefg123456789
- User-Agent: Windows
- Authorization: Bearer <jwtToken>
Allow "WITH CONNECTION"

...and pointing to that new connection in the variables section of the script. Look for the variable:

Set vLibConnect = 'monitor_apps_REST_app';

...and change to:

Set vLibConnect = 'monitor_apps_REST_app_JWT'; (Assuming that's the name of the new Data connection).

Hope this helps,