diff --git a/Pachyderm/Sources/Pachyderm/Model/Hashtag.swift b/Pachyderm/Sources/Pachyderm/Model/Hashtag.swift
index ff61dd36..82ef7ffc 100644
--- a/Pachyderm/Sources/Pachyderm/Model/Hashtag.swift
+++ b/Pachyderm/Sources/Pachyderm/Model/Hashtag.swift
@@ -26,10 +26,17 @@ public class Hashtag: Codable {
         let container = try decoder.container(keyedBy: CodingKeys.self)
         self.name = try container.decode(String.self, forKey: .name)
         // pixelfed (possibly others) don't fully escape special characters in the hashtag url
-        if let url = URL(try container.decode(WebURL.self, forKey: .url)) {
-            self.url = url
-        } else {
-            throw DecodingError.dataCorruptedError(forKey: .url, in: container, debugDescription: "unable to convert WebURL to URL")
+        do {
+            let webURL = try container.decode(WebURL.self, forKey: .url)
+            if let url = URL(webURL) {
+                self.url = url
+            } else {
+                let s = try? container.decode(String.self, forKey: .url)
+                throw DecodingError.dataCorruptedError(forKey: .url, in: container, debugDescription: "unable to convert WebURL \(s?.debugDescription ?? "nil") to URL")
+            }
+        } catch {
+            let s = try? container.decode(String.self, forKey: .url)
+            throw DecodingError.dataCorruptedError(forKey: .url, in: container, debugDescription: "unable to decode WebURL from \(s?.debugDescription ?? "nil")")
         }
         self.history = try container.decodeIfPresent([History].self, forKey: .history)
     }