Horizontal line with - - - does not show on load in LP

I just updated to v.1.8.4 and my horizontal lines don’t show up in live preview unless I click them and they also disappear from view after a while until clicked again. This happens only with horizontal lines made with spaces: - - -. If made without spaces (---) it works. So, there’s a workaround, but there are a lot of notes I would need to correct and also, the issue with the version without spaces is that you can’t put it directly under a paragraph without making it a heading.

I have tried this with disabling all snippets and plugins, so it doesn’t seem to be an issue with them

Steps to reproduce

Make a horizontal line (with spaces) in live preview: - - -

Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? Y

Expected result

I expect to see a horizontal line as before the update

Actual result

Currently nothing is shown until I move the cursor to the row where the horizontal line is.

Environment

Note that while it shows a custom theme, that is made by me and only includes colors. All actual behavioral changes are made in snippets, so this is why I didn’t disable the theme.

SYSTEM INFO:
	Obsidian version: v1.8.4
	Installer version: v1.6.5
	Operating system: Windows 11 Home 10.0.26100
	Login status: not logged in
	Language: en
	Insider build toggle: off
	Live preview: on
	Base theme: light
	Community theme: Nord 2.0 v3.0
	Snippets enabled: 0
	Restricted mode: off
	Plugins installed: 14
	Plugins enabled: 0

RECOMMENDATIONS:
	Custom theme and snippets: for cosmetic issues, please first try updating your theme and disabling your snippets. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community theme and snippets.
4 Likes

It is likely worth downloading and reinstalling Obsidian to get the latest installer version, to test if that helps.

I have thousands of notes with the horizontal line created with hyphens with spaces and none of them are showing up today. I came here to report the bug only to find this report already submitted. I am hopeful there is an easy solution to this.

1 Like

Can you please show your “Show Debug Info” like the post above?

I reinstalled with the new installer, but the behavior didn’t change.

1 Like

Thanks, I can reproduce

Steps to reproduce

Type - - - in any note
Reload app
Horizontal rule won’t load until you’ve clicked it

Did you follow the [troubleshooting guide]

Yes, teacher, I did all my homework. Reproducible across three or more devices in the OMG Discord.

Expected result

A horizontal rule visible from the start.

Actual result

An empty line where the horizontal rule should be.

Environment

SYSTEM INFO:
Operating system: android 14 (samsung SM-A155F)
Obsidian version: 1.8.3 (183)
API version: v1.8.3
Login status: not logged in
Language: en
Live preview: on
Base theme: adapt to system
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: on

RECOMMENDATIONS:
none

Additional information

Link to original message reporting bug

SailKite’s observation about the DOM
v1-8-3_LP_hr_issue_1

1 Like

I can confirm this is reproduced on MacOS as well.

I will add that this does not meet some Markdown spec (Basic Syntax | Markdown Guide) but meets other (Daring Fireball: Markdown Syntax Documentation), but we may have previously been overriding it.

It is confirmed working in 1.7.7

1 Like

Info I forgot to add, naturally.

This only happens with this format. I didn’t test without spaces, but <hr> works just fine.

If you read my original report, the version without spaces works fine…

That’s ok. This was a separate report from a few days ago that got merged in to your thread. Thanks for the info everyone!

I have the same issue. My syntax for horizontal lines is - --. That is both to avoid text above the line being rendered as headings, as OP wrote, and to allow myself to move bullet / task items through horizontal lines with hotkeys, which is not possible with --- or -- - syntax. Moving items through - - - is possible too.

I think what enables this useful feature / hack is the horizontal line being treated partly as a bullet item, due to it starting with - . All the syntax variations starting with - are the ones that have problems rendering, and they are also the ones allowing the user to move items through them, so my guess is that the problem is related to this.

The issue can be reproduced in restricted mode as well as in sandbox vault.

Here’s my debug info (from sandbox vault) :

SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.8.4
Installer version: v1.8.4
Operating system: Windows 10 Pro 10.0.19045
Login status: not logged in
Language: en
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Base theme: adapt to system
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: on

RECOMMENDATIONS:
none

I experience the same behavior as evidenced in - - - Dividers are invisible until highlighted in editor view

I have the same problem with rendering of “- - -” after the recent update to 1.8.4

SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.8.4
Installer version: v1.6.7
Operating system: #53-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sat Jan 11 00:06:25 UTC 2025 6.8.0-52-generic
Login status: logged in
Language: en
Catalyst license: none
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Base theme: dark
Community theme: Obsidian gruvbox v0.2.1
Snippets enabled: 2
Restricted mode: off
Plugins installed: 12
Plugins enabled: 12
1: Auto Link Title v1.5.5
2: Text Format v3.1.0
3: Sort & Permute lines v0.7.0
4: Cursor Location v0.3.2
5: Tasks v7.14.0
6: Advanced Canvas v3.7.2
7: Calendar v1.5.10
8: File Color v1.1.0
9: Kanban v2.0.51
10: Natural Language Dates v0.6.2
11: Code Styler v1.1.7
12: Canvas Keyboard Pan v1.0.1

I hope it was clear in my previous reply that my point wasn’t to tell about advantages about specific syntaxes. The point was that in my test, all horizontal lines that start with - (dash + space) are the ones that have problems rendering. Other ways of defining a horizontal line render just fine.

So my guess is that the problem is related to some compilation confusion of whether it’s a horizontal line or a bullet list item (as they too are defined by - ). And somehow it ends up appearing as just a blank space.

These syntaxes are the broken ones: - -- and - - -.
These syntaxes still work as intended: --- and -- -.

I hope this can help debugging the issue.

Also, correction: The mentioned affordance of - -- / - - - to “move bullet / task items through” them refers to “Outliner” plugin actions “move list and sublists down” / “-up”. I forgot that action wasn’t a core feature. The normal line movement command doesn’t care about the syntax.