Bitbucket text (markdown) formatting broken
Asked by Matt Schuckmann:

I'm finding that can't get markdown (or even formatting using the toolbar) to work as expected.

I most often see this when writing a PR description and the problems are usually centered around code blocks and unordered lists:

For example here is what wrote in a recent PR description:   
![edit-pr-description.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/182130i7A94F52FA5FD12F6/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "edit-pr-description.png")

Here is what I get after I click Update Pull Request:   
![saved-pr-description.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/182131i0B483FA4F6737991/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "saved-pr-description.png")

And this is a mild example, quit often all the bullet items have been concatenated on the same line and the code blocks look like long inline blocks instead of a solid block.


Answers:
author: candace
body: I am having a Markdown issue too, specifically with unordered lists with sublists.

```
* Create a user
* Go to http://localhost:3000 and grant your user the permissions:
    * can manage X
    * can manage Y
    * can manage Z
```

And it renders/formats as the following on a single line:  
\* Create a user \* Go to <http://localhost:3000> and grant your user the permissions: \* can manage X \* can manage Y \* can manage Z  
For some reason, in the \*same\* README file...this works fine.  

```
* Applications
    * hello: this is hello world.
    * world: This comes after hello.
* Some other stuff
```

This renders as expected, with an unordered list (bullets) with the first bullet point having a sublist. Can anyone help explain why?  
TIA


author: Norbert C
body: [@Matt Schuckmann](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4502929)

Thank you for contacting Atlassian Support, my name is Norbert and I'm a Bitbucket Cloud Support Engineer, it's nice to meet with you.

I would like to inform you that I haven't been able to reproduce the same behavior what you experience. When I created a similar PR description all the formatting was shown correctly. Please see the picture:

![issuewithPR.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/182433iEE36C06D0D7BB123/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "issuewithPR.png")

Can you let me know about the following, please?

* Do you have the Atlassian Editor enabled at this site? <https://bitbucket.org/account/settings/features/>
* Can you try to do this in an incognito window with no add-ons enabled? Does that make any difference?
* What browser/OS combination do you use?

Please let me know, it'll help me in the further troubleshooting.

Have a good day!

Best Regards,  
Norbert  
Atlassian Bitbucket Cloud Support

comments: author: Matt Schuckmann
body: Hi Norbert,

To answer your questions:   

* Yes I have the Atlassian Editor enabled, is that toolbar across the top of the text edit box?
* I'm trying to reproduce the problem using Incognito mode like you requested, however your software won't let me create a PR in a public repo located in my own workspace when I'm logged in from an Incognito tab. It tells me I don't have permission to create a pull request, what gives?
* My browser is Chrome \`Version 98.0.4758.80 (Official Build) (64-bit)\`. My OS is Ubuntu 20.04.


author: Matt Schuckmann
body: Since I couldn't create the PR in an Incognito tab, I went ahead and did it in a regular tab and then viewed the saved PR in an incognito tab.

Here is what the PR description looked like before I clicked Create Pull Request  

![bb-pr-markdown-test.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/182607i83D37ADF774FF44E/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "bb-pr-markdown-test.png")

And Here is what it looks like after click Create Pull Request (and it looks the same with in Chrome and Firefox in either regular mode or incognito.

![bb-pr-markdown-test-saved.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/182608i329683E53687486F/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "bb-pr-markdown-test-saved.png")

You can view the PR at:  
<https://bitbucket.org/matt_schuckmann/public-test/pull-requests/3/add-readmemd>

And here is a gist of the exact markdown that I pasted into the PR description:   
<https://gist.github.com/mschuckmann/e3d90a4fed6c46b01173b9db8eef481c>


author: Norbert C
body: Hi [@Matt Schuckmann](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4502929)

Thank you for your detailed explanation. I would like to inform you that unfortunately this is a bug on our system. Markdown fails to render proplerly if there are multiple lines within the code block.

We have a bug ticket for this as you can see on the link below:

[BCLOUD-20503 - Markdown failed to render properly if there are multiple lines within the code block](https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/BCLOUD-20503)

Our development team will give a first-hand update on that ticket if there's any progress made so I would suggest keeping a watch and vote for it.

You can find our bug fixing policy on the following site: [Atlassian Cloud Bug Fix Policy](https://confluence.atlassian.com/support/atlassian-cloud-bug-fix-policy-206865884.html)

Please let us know if you have any further question?

Best Regards,  
Norbert  
Atlassian Bitbucket Cloud Support


author: Matt Schuckmann
body: Hi Norbert,

Thank you for the link to the bug report. I can't believe that's a low priority bug that has existed for over a year. A fenced code block is an incredibly common thing to put in markdown when documenting code. I would think you're customers would be screaming at you to fix it. This is also something that pretty much every Markdown render I've ever used handles just fine.

Is there really no work around?

What's it gonna take to up the priority of this issue and get it fixed?

Regards,

Matt S.


author: Norbert C
body: Hi [@Matt Schuckmann](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4502929) ,

Currently the only workaround is to split the code block into multiple part rather than one code block

I've reached out to our engineering team and I'm going to update you once I get back any info from them.

Thank you for your patience.

Best Regards,  
Norbert  
Atlassian Bitbucket Cloud Support


author: Matt Schuckmann
body: Yes [@Norbert C](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1190200) please keep me advised on the progress towards a fix, the workaround is untenable (just imagine trying to add a 10, 20, 30, etc line code block) it gets ridiculous pretty fast.


author: Norbert C
body: Hi [@Matt Schuckmann](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4502929)

Thank you for your patience. I spoke with our Engineering Team, but unfortunately they weren't able to provide me an ETA for this fix.

Best Regards,  
Norbert  
Atlassian Bitbucket Cloud Support


author: stan_marshall
body: It's been over a year since these comments, and the underlying bug (which is somehow classified as minor?!?!) has been open for 3 YEARS.

This is NOT MINOR. This is fundamental, basic, necessary functionality for a code review system.

Is Atlassian ever going to fix this?


author: candace
body: I am having a Markdown issue too, specifically with unordered lists with sublists.

```
* Create a user
* Go to http://localhost:3000 and grant your user the permissions:
    * can manage X
    * can manage Y
    * can manage Z
```

And it renders/formats as the following on a single line:  
\* Create a user \* Go to <http://localhost:3000> and grant your user the permissions: \* can manage X \* can manage Y \* can manage Z  

For some reason, in the \*same\* README file...this works fine.  

```
* Applications
    * hello: this is hello world.
    * world: This comes after hello.
* Some other stuff
```

This renders as expected, with an unordered list (bullets) with the first bullet point having a sublist. Can anyone help explain why?  
TIA


Tags: bitbucket-cloud

cloud

format

markdown