Navigation button navigation_path: forward slashes not working as described in documentation

[thorfrag]

Checklist

• I have updated to the latest available Home Assistant version.
• I have cleared the cache of my browser.
• I have tried a different browser to see if it is related to my browser.
• I have tried reproducing the issue in safe mode to rule out problems with unsupported custom resources.

Describe the issue you are experiencing

Documentation does a lot of places say that you can copy URL from your browsers address bar, decode it and paste into YAML. If I in the code (a button card refering to a configured network storage) below change the %2F to / the button will no longer work

show_name: true
show_icon: true
type: button
tap_action:
action: navigate
navigation_path: >-
/media-browser/browser/app,/media-source:%2F%2Fmedia_source%2Flocal%2FCameraRecordings%2FDriveway
icon: mdi:camera-image
color: accent
name: Driveway recordings
grid_options:
columns: 1
rows: 2
icon_height: 40px

Examle of documentation:
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/media_source/

Describe the behavior you expected

Since the media-source and media-browser URI shown in documentation contains non-encoded forward-slashes I would exect that is the correct setup, even though that will make it impossible to use paths with / as part of the name. The error reporting gives not clue about why it does not work with non-encoded slashes.

Steps to reproduce the issue

...

What version of Home Assistant Core has the issue?

Core 2026.3.4

What was the last working version of Home Assistant Core?

No response

In which browser are you experiencing the issue?

No response

Which operating system are you using to run this browser?

Win10

State of relevant entities

Problem-relevant frontend configuration

JavaScript errors shown in your browser console/inspector

Additional information

No response

[MindFreeze]

I am confused. The docs you posted are not the button docs and don't mention navigation_path

[thorfrag]

Correct - syntax of navigation_path does not seem to be explicitly documented anywhere. I may have extrapolated a bit, but the linked doc does show very clear that if I need a path for a network storage for an action then it needs to be decoded. navigation_path in a button seems to be an action - right? But I can live with it as is implemented, then documentations just bad.

BTW. I can see from questions on internet that I'm not the only one having trouble making navitation_path to media subfolders work.

Funfact: Google AI search now already tell users searching for navigation to home assistant media subfolders that using slashes is incorrect. and that you should use encoded slashes. Example based on my ticket :-)