Title: [Plugin: Special Recent Posts] Garbage chars in page source code
Last modified: August 20, 2016

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# [Plugin: Special Recent Posts] Garbage chars in page source code

 *  [MightyMikeX](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mightymikex/)
 * (@mightymikex)
 * [13 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-special-recent-posts-garbage-chars/)
 * Hi,
 * I ran my site through the [W3C Markup Validation Service](http://validator.w3.org/)
   and found a weird bug with this plugin:
 * After each post excerpt, right before `<a class="srp-widget-stringbreak-link"`,
   a weird code is rendered:
    `</<></<></<></<></<></<>`
 * Besides simply being bizarre, this code breaks the validation test with the appropriate**
   Garbage after </** error.
 * What’s the cause of this code? How can it be removed? Thanks!
 * Here’s my W3C test result: [http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fgames4e.com%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&ss=1&group=0&user-agent=W3C_Validator%2F1.3](http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fgames4e.com%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&ss=1&group=0&user-agent=W3C_Validator%2F1.3)
 * [http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/special-recent-posts/](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/special-recent-posts/)

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

 *  Plugin Author [Luca Grandicelli](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lgrandicelli/)
 * (@lgrandicelli)
 * [13 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-special-recent-posts-garbage-chars/#post-3007916)
 * This is not caused by the plugin itself, but you should look inside the content
   of that post, which is responsable for producing this unclosed tags. The strange
   markup infact, is right inside the post content.
    Please do a check and report.
 *  Thread Starter [MightyMikeX](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mightymikex/)
 * (@mightymikex)
 * [13 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-special-recent-posts-garbage-chars/#post-3007925)
 * Ok, I did some cross-checking and came to a few conclusions:
 * 1. The garbage markup doesn’t appear in the original posts’ code
    2. The markup
   also doesn’t appear in any post page’s code 3. It’s not an issue of language –
   recreated the bug in English and Hebrew both 4. The problem only manifests where
   the posts are displayed by SRP 5. The problem only happens when there are <p>
   tags in the post 6. Not sure why, but now the garbage markup is: `<!--<--><!--
   <--><!--<--><!--<-->` , which are comment tags containing just a < sign 7. Even
   though the garbage markup is in fact commented, W3C still sees it as an error
   8. W3C also reveals an additional error: No p element in scope but a p end tag
   seen. — this error is indeed true in the source code, but isn’t present in the
   post’s code in TinyMCE – the additional </p> must be added somehow when the page
   is rendered. This again only happens inside the SRP widget.
 * So what I take from all this is that a combination of <p> or </p> tags in a post
   lead SRP or WP itself to create that markup, and only within SRP’s widget. Any
   ideas?
 *  Plugin Author [Luca Grandicelli](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lgrandicelli/)
 * (@lgrandicelli)
 * [13 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-special-recent-posts-garbage-chars/#post-3007954)
 * What happens if you try to put the <p> tag in the “allowed html tags” option?
 *  Thread Starter [MightyMikeX](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mightymikex/)
 * (@mightymikex)
 * [13 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-special-recent-posts-garbage-chars/#post-3007955)
 * I forgot to mention – it’s already in the allowed HTML tags list
 *  Plugin Author [Luca Grandicelli](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lgrandicelli/)
 * (@lgrandicelli)
 * [13 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-special-recent-posts-garbage-chars/#post-3007956)
 * Ok another test. Have you tried to put wp on debug mode? Is there any particula
   error related to SRP you can find?
 *  Thread Starter [MightyMikeX](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mightymikex/)
 * (@mightymikex)
 * [13 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-special-recent-posts-garbage-chars/#post-3007959)
 * No, I don’t see any relevant errors.
 *  Plugin Author [Luca Grandicelli](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lgrandicelli/)
 * (@lgrandicelli)
 * [13 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-special-recent-posts-garbage-chars/#post-3007961)
 * I don’t know.. this issue is totally new to me and you’re the first person who
   is experiencing this. I need to do some test.
 *  Thread Starter [MightyMikeX](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mightymikex/)
 * (@mightymikex)
 * [13 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-special-recent-posts-garbage-chars/#post-3007964)
 * Well at least it’s a harmless bug. I’ll live with it for now 😉
 *  Plugin Author [Luca Grandicelli](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lgrandicelli/)
 * (@lgrandicelli)
 * [13 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-special-recent-posts-garbage-chars/#post-3007973)
 * Ok i’ll let you know if i come up with something.

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

The topic ‘[Plugin: Special Recent Posts] Garbage chars in page source code’ is 
closed to new replies.

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## Tags

 * [code](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/code/)
 * [W3C](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/w3c/)

 * 9 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Luca Grandicelli](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lgrandicelli/)
 * Last activity: [13 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-special-recent-posts-garbage-chars/#post-3007973)
 * Status: not resolved