Once you’ve done the above, delete everything above this line.
Steps to reproduce
Enter this Markdown in a Sandbox page:
1. one
2. two
3. three
SEPARATOR
4. four
5. five
6. six
SEPARATOR
7. seven
8. ate
9. nine
Note that there are 2 blank lines above 3. three, 5. five and 9. nine.
Then add some dummy character “a” in the blank line (the second one) above 3. three, 5. five and 9. nine respectively.
Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? [Y/N]
Yes, confirmed in Sandbox Vault
Expected result
a should simply be added, without changing the rest.
Actual result
a is added but the number below also changes, quite erratically but always to a previous number:
- 3 becomes 1
- 5 becomes 4
- 9 becomes 5
According to my testing, the position of SEPARATOR and the presence of a blank line above or not changes how the number decrementing works. However, I could not find a clear rule (for instance, if I remove the blank line between 3 and the SEPARATOR below, when adding a above 5, 5 becomes 3, so reduced by 2 - whereas 9, in a similar situation, would become 5, so reduced by 4.
Environment
SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.9.12
Installer version: v1.8.4
Operating system: #163-Ubuntu SMP Thu Aug 7 16:37:18 UTC 2025 5.15.0-153-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: off
Plugins installed: 0
Plugins enabled: 0
RECOMMENDATIONS:
none
Additional information
I initially reported some variant of this bug at this end of this thread:
The “ctrl+x” part to delete a line seems to have been fixed, only typing in blank line above numbered entry remained.
Regarding this thread, I would personally like an option to disable automatic update of existing numbered list numbers (because sometimes I have gaps in my numbers on purpose and the renumbering is confusing), but not the initial numbered list increment which is still useful to me. Disabling Smart Lists as recommended on the thread unfortunately also disables the unordered list (bullet) generation completely, as well as trivial 1. 2. 3. number list generation.
However, it seems that a good part of what I considered confusing update was due to this bug, so first I’d like to see how automatic numbering looks like once this bug is fixed, and then see if I still need an option to disable auto-numbering.