Typing in Live-Preview can delete an entire HTML element tag

Bug reports
1

Hi. This bug sneakily deletes html elements from your note under certain conditions, and all the user needs to do is to type text. For me it is a serious bug, so I would be very happy to see it fixed. Thank you all. : )

Steps to reproduce

  1. Create a new note.
  2. Turn on Live-Preview.
  3. Copy paste the below into it.
<img src="emoji-overleaf.png">Random text here, doesn't matter.<img src="emoji-overleaf.png">
  1. Place your cursor exactly at the end of the first </span>
  2. Type pasta. (any two characters suffice actually)

Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? [Y/N]

Yes. I tested in a fresh sandbox.

Expected result

The note should obviously just become:

<img src="emoji-overleaf.png">pastaRandom text here, doesn't matter.<img src="emoji-overleaf.png">

Actual result

The note becomes:

Random text here, doesn't matter.<img src="emoji-overleaf.png">

Ie, <span class="emoji-quark"></span> is deleted. It is NOT simply hidden/invisible, itā€™s gone. You can check this by turning on source-mode, or pressing ctrl+A.

Environment

SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.9.10
Installer version: v1.8.4
Operating system: Windows 11 Pro 10.0.26100
Login status: logged in
Language: en
Catalyst license: none
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Base theme: adapt to system
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: off
Plugins installed: 0
Plugins enabled: 0

RECOMMENDATIONS:
none

Additional information

These are more general conditions under which I believe the bug will always happens:

  1. You must be in Live-Preview.
  2. You must have two occurrences of the exact same (character-for-character) html element in the same note.
  3. If the cursor is at the end of the first occurrence, type any two characters.
  4. Now first occurrence is deleted.

Clarification:

  • The cursor doesnā€™t even have to be exactly at the end of the first html element. Typing in other places can delete the first element as well. I think you must be typing in the line that contains the first element though.
  • I did verify the bug with other html elements like: <span class="emoji-quark"></span> and <span></span> ;

When I previously made a post about this for <span class="emoji-quark"></span>, I didnā€™t find any reports of this bug.

4 Likes
2

This simplification might help your report. In each of these examples, type two characters directly before ā€œloremā€ to reproduce.

Tags that have been closed or are self-closing exhibit the behavior:

<br>lorem<br>

<img src="a">lorem<img src="a">

Open tags do not exhibit the behavior :

<span>lorem<span>

ā€¦ until you close them, at which point they take on the behavior:

<span></span>lorem<span></span>

The behavior occurs when the entire string of HTML tags and optional content are identical:

<span class="a">identical text</span>lorem<span class="a">identical text</span>

Only the tag(s) are removed; enclosed text and interstitial text remain:

<div>identical text</div>lorem<div>identical text</div>

The behavior also reliably occurs when typing a single character within the word ā€œloremā€ (so anywhere between the letters ā€œlā€ and ā€œmā€) but only when the line is fresh, as in, when the cursor has freshly reentered the line and before typing other edits.

3

I was able to reproduce (My span elements disappear when I type text in their line - #4 by CawlinTeffid). Unlike Dawni, I was not able (on iOS) to reproduce by typing only 2 characters (before a string of as as given in the original example in the Help thread). I didnā€™t try 3 or 4.

4

I noticed this with <br> tags, which are the only HTML element I use frequently in Obsidian, on desktop and mobile. The <br> tag disappears when Iā€™m typing in the line after the break tag.

I also saw some reallyā€¦interestingā€¦behavior when an internal link was inserted before the <br tag, an example of which I happened to capture in a Loom video demonstrating the bug! (The first time it happened, Iā€™d inserted an internal link with an alias right before the <br> tag, and the link disappeared with it, but the link alias would pop up randomly where the next <br> tag was wherever I clicked. Couldnā€™t reproduce this in the sandbox, but might be useful info.)

This Loom captures the <br> tag disappearing as well as some wild behavior with an internal link: Testing HTML Tag Issues in Obsidian šŸž | Loom

Iā€™ve attached the .md test file from the sandbox vault.
HTML break tag testing.md (446 Bytes)

Hereā€™s my sandbox vault environment:
SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.9.10
Installer version: v1.8.4
Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 24.5.0: Tue Apr 22 19:54:49 PDT 2025; root:xnu-11417.121.6~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T6000 24.5.0
Login status: logged in
Language: en
Catalyst license: none
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Base theme: adapt to system
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: on

RECOMMENDATIONS:
none

1 Like
5

ayaac2002, nice, that Loom matches what Iā€™m seeing (and described above): looked like it happened when you typed within the first word that immediately followed the <br> tag (with no spaces between), not when you typed other places.

And it probably wonā€™t matter to the devā€™s debugging but setting the feedback straight just in case it becomes a sticking point: I donā€™t know the string of as example that Cawlin mentioned so did not (try to) replicate it.

6

Itā€™s the example from the original help thread linked in the last sentence of the bug report. Itā€™s not substantially different, just a different sting between the html tags. I just specified in case somehow that explained the difference in what we saw.

1 Like
7

Once youā€™ve done the above, delete everything above this line.

Steps to reproduce

J2025_0902_154829
J2025_0902_154829617Ɨ523 91 KB

9

First, enter it in the second line.

![](file:///D:%5Cppp.webp)<span class="x">x</span>

Then, re-enter it in the first line again.

! [](file:///D:%5Cppp.webp)<span class="x">x</span>

After that, if you input any more text, it will overwrite the content of the first line.

Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? [Y/N]

Y

Expected result

Actual result

Environment

Sandbox 1.9.12

Additional information

1 Like
9

thanks

10

Steps to reproduce

  1. Create a new note
  2. Copy this line into the note: Let N' = (Ī£, Q<sub>1</sub> āØÆ Q<sub>2</sub>, įŗŸ<sub>P</sub>, (s<sub>1</sub>, s<sub>2</sub>), (F<sub>1</sub> āØÆ Q<sub>2</sub>) āˆŖ (Q<sub>1</sub> āØÆ F<sub>2</sub>)) be the union product NFA, where įŗŸ<sub>P</sub> : (Q<sub>1</sub> āØÆ Q<sub>2</sub>) āØÆ Ī£ -> 2<sup>Q<sub>1</sub> āØÆ Q<sub>2</sub></sup> is given by įŗŸ<sub>P</sub>((p<sub>1</sub>, p<sub>2</sub>), c) = įŗŸ<sub>1</sub>(p<sub>1</sub>, c) āØÆ įŗŸ<sub>2</sub>(p<sub>2</sub>, c).
  3. Put your cursor between any symbol and the subscript directly after it (for example, between Q and <sub>1</sub>), type a space, then delete it.
  4. Now put your cursor directly before the symbol preceding the subscript (in this example, directly before the Q) and type a space. The subscript tags directly following it disappear. (Some other number of subscript tags may also disappear if you do this a few times.)

Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? [Y/N]

Yes, I set the theme to default, restarted it in restricted mode, Iā€™m not using any snippets, and I also ran it in the appimage version instead of the .deb version.

Expected result

Subscript tags should never disappear.

Actual result

Iā€™ve noticed subscript tags disappearing when you edit the same line and there is a lot of them in the line. Sometimes it is all the subscript tags containing the same text; sometimes all of the subscript tags in the entire line at onceā€¦ if I ctrl+z they come back and I can usually repeat whatever I did to cause it without any effect. It seems to be related to where the cursor previously was. If you try this with just the one superscript tag in the original text, nothing happens, but if you find-and-replace all of the superscript tags to subscript tags, you can reproduce this with superscript tags as well.

It doesnā€™t seem to affect tags on other lines (even other lines that also have a lot of tags), only the line youā€™re currently editing.

Environment

SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.9.12
Installer version: v1.9.12
Operating system: #29~24.04.1-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu Aug 14 16:52:50 UTC 2 6.14.0-29-generic
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

1 Like