lib/PublicInbox/MID.pm | 8 ++++++++
 t/view.t               | 9 +++++++++

diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/MID.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/MID.pm
index d097011bf4ae21b58075def04f2306cd66a22f54..c75aa0e166ec3709515d0a3825c789006ec5d0fd 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/MID.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/MID.pm
@@ -20,6 +20,14 @@
 # this is idempotent
 sub mid_compressed {
 	my ($mid) = @_;
+
+	# XXX dirty hack! FIXME!
+	# Some HTTP servers (apache2 2.2.22-13+deb7u5 on my system)
+	# apparently do not handle "%25" in the URL path component correctly.
+	# I'm not yet sure if it's something weird with my rewrite rules
+	# or what; will need to debug...
+	return sha1_hex($mid) if (index($mid, '%') >= 0);
+
 	return $mid if (length($mid) <= MID_MAX);
 	sha1_hex($mid);
 }
diff --git a/t/view.t b/t/view.t
index 3107285c1dd0dbfb7e4c6cf7a937ca291db23f00..463fc0764d9a9e2587e72a038c719a5926d10255 100644
--- a/t/view.t
+++ b/t/view.t
@@ -144,4 +144,13 @@ 	like($orig, qr/hi =3D bye=/, "our test used QP correctly");
 	like($html, qr/\bhi = bye\b/, "HTML output decoded QP");
 }
 
+
+{	# XXX dirty hack
+	use PublicInbox::MID qw/mid_compressed/;
+	like(mid_compressed('foo%bar@wtf'), qr/\A[a-f0-9]{40}\z/,
+		"percent always converted to sha1 to workaround buggy httpds");
+	is(mid_compressed('foobar@wtf'), 'foobar@wtf',
+		'regular MID not compressed');
+}
+
 done_testing();