diff --git a/mtags/src/main/scala-2/scala/meta/internal/metals/URIEncoderDecoder.scala b/mtags/src/main/scala-2/scala/meta/internal/metals/URIEncoderDecoder.scala
index 091fcad4497..65035ad7dd6 100644
--- a/mtags/src/main/scala-2/scala/meta/internal/metals/URIEncoderDecoder.scala
+++ b/mtags/src/main/scala-2/scala/meta/internal/metals/URIEncoderDecoder.scala
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ object URIEncoderDecoder {
   // Some encoding schemes encode `:` (although not the first one as that indicates scheme).
   // Currently Metals doesn't encode `:` but does decode it
   private val toEscape: Map[Char, String] =
-    Set('"', '<', '>', '&', '\'', '[', ']', '{', '}', ' ', '+', '!')
+    Set('"', '<', '>', '&', '\'', '[', ']', '{', '}', ' ', '+')
       .map(char => char -> ("%" + char.toHexString))
       .toMap
 
diff --git a/mtags/src/main/scala-2/scala/meta/internal/mtags/MtagsEnrichments.scala b/mtags/src/main/scala-2/scala/meta/internal/mtags/MtagsEnrichments.scala
index 63c29f3b390..155add980c9 100644
--- a/mtags/src/main/scala-2/scala/meta/internal/mtags/MtagsEnrichments.scala
+++ b/mtags/src/main/scala-2/scala/meta/internal/mtags/MtagsEnrichments.scala
@@ -174,7 +174,10 @@ trait MtagsEnrichments extends ScalametaCommonEnrichments {
           URLDecoder.decode(_, "UTF-8").toAbsolutePath(followSymlink)
         )
       else if (value.toUpperCase.startsWith("JAR")) {
-        try URI.create(value).toAbsolutePath(followSymlink)
+        try
+          URI
+            .create(URIEncoderDecoder.encode(value))
+            .toAbsolutePath(followSymlink)
         catch {
           case _: NoSuchFileException | _: FileSystemNotFoundException =>
             withTryDecode(value.stripPrefix("jar:"))(
diff --git a/tests/unit/src/test/scala/tests/UriEncoderDecoderSuite.scala b/tests/unit/src/test/scala/tests/UriEncoderDecoderSuite.scala
index 2fa7519d7a4..4e73f11b3b9 100644
--- a/tests/unit/src/test/scala/tests/UriEncoderDecoderSuite.scala
+++ b/tests/unit/src/test/scala/tests/UriEncoderDecoderSuite.scala
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 package tests
 
+import scala.meta.internal.metals.MetalsEnrichments.XtensionString
 import scala.meta.internal.mtags.URIEncoderDecoder
 
 class UriEncoderDecoderSuite extends BaseSuite {
@@ -41,4 +42,11 @@ class UriEncoderDecoderSuite extends BaseSuite {
     )
   }
 
+  test("absolute-path-space") {
+    // Should be NoSuchFileException instead of URI creation one
+    intercept[java.nio.file.NoSuchFileException] {
+      "jar:file:///C:/Program Files/Java/jdk-21.0.3+9/lib/src.zip!/java.base/java/lang/String.java".toAbsolutePath
+    }
+  }
+
 }