jim5471

I did some more research and found some recent bug tickets for a couple of other examples of this problem which hopefully will inform others searching for this bug.

https://core.trac.www.ads-software.com/ticket/39307 << </p> tag inserted in <figure>
https://core.trac.www.ads-software.com/ticket/37672 << wpautop adds a closing p-tag without an opening p-tag
https://core.trac.www.ads-software.com/ticket/38656 << wpautop incorrectly handling paragraphs within block elements
https://core.trac.www.ads-software.com/ticket/39377 << wpautop adds a extra </p>

Unfortunately the developers only seem to be preparing patches to fix <figure> & <span> tags and are unaware that there is a wider problem.
Maybe WordPress Support will tell them.

Hi danteand
Thanks for taking the trouble to check my post and confirm you also are seeing the problem.

I spent a bit of time last night and also saw it on a couple of “Best of WordPress” websites but there aren’t many examples.
Guess my new job is safe for the moment – at least I can explain to my boss why there are coding errors on my pages.

The wpautop info is useful to know but I cannot go there as I only have an Editor account.

The website code that results from my OP is here. I have added blank lines to split the code blocks up to make it easier to read.

<p><span><br />
<img src="image.png" alt="thumb"></p>
<p>Text</p>
<p></span></p>

<div>
<img src="image.png" alt="thumb"></p>
<p>The br tag vanishes</p>
</div>

<div><img src="image.png" alt="thumb"></p>
<div>Caption</div>
</div>

<li>
<img src="image.png" alt="thumb"></p>
<p>Text</p>
</li>

<li>
<img src="image.png" alt="thumb"><b>Almost the same as the previous code block but with no error</b>
</li>

<div><img src="image.png" alt="thumb">No error here either</div>

<div><a href="document.htm"><img src="image.png" alt="thumb"></a></p>
<p>Text</p>
</div>

<p><a href="document.htm"><img src="image.png" alt="thumb"></p>
<p>Text</p>
<p></a></p>

I am aware of WordPress automatically inserting <p> and </p> tags.

But this is different – If you try the code you should only see the p closing tag ie: </p>
there is no p opening tag.

“Disabling the wpautop filter” looks interesting. Do I just paste it in with the HTML ?