Tag: "Invalid tag format detected" causes 404 response?

[emas80]

Hi, I am using Restlet 2.3.6 and I have found a very weird issue that I cannot track down into the code.

On the logs of my application I see "Invalid tag format detected: [SOME_INVALID_ETAG_VALUE]" and after I see that the response status returned is 404

I see that the first message is printed inside of the Tag class, line 84. I guess that the responsible of the 404 is the ServerResource class, line 464, doHandle method. The call, when the warning is printed, doesn't even reach my code, it is stopped somewhere at Restlet level.

Now, I clearly understand that the tag it found is not a valid tag, and I am fine with that. What I don't understand is why this translates into a 404, it seems wrong to me, why not simply ignore the tag and return the response?