[bug]Appsheet Longtext HTML Formatting Issue - No Line Breaks

[JOHNN]

Hello everyone,

I wanted to share a bug I just discovered on Appsheet this morning, related to the Longtext data type. Specifically, when I select HTML format for a Longtext column, the entered information doesn't display line breaks as it usually does.

This is quite an inconvenient bug because I frequently use HTML formatting to present long text information clearly and legibly. Everything worked fine before, but this error has only appeared recently.

I'm wondering if anyone else in the community is experiencing the same issue? Lately, I feel like Appsheet has been having more bugs than usual. Hopefully, the Appsheet team will fix this problem soon so that our work isn't interrupted.

Looking forward to your feedback and sharing. Thanks!

[Ben_Dowell]

We're having the same issue too at the moment, and use the HTML Longtext column a lot for comments and logs, so it's making it very difficult to read.
The only temporary fix I have at the moment is to add <br> for each line break, but hopefully the Appsheet team can issue a proper fix soon!
Thank you

[PauloExpert]

Thanks for sharing that, and you're not alone—several users have reported similar issues recently with LongText columns set to HTML format in AppSheet no longer respecting line breaks (<br> or newlines) the way they used to.

What's Likely Happening:

AppSheet appears to have made a change in how it renders HTML content, especially in dashboard views, card views, or detail views. In many cases, it now strips or mishandles basic HTML tags like <br>, <div>, or even <p>, leading to everything appearing as a single paragraph.

Workarounds You Can Try:

1. Manually insert <br> tags: Sometimes, newlines (\n) aren't recognized, but hardcoded HTML <br> still is:

Line 1<br>Line 2<br>Line 3

2. Use a Virtual Column for display only:

Keep your raw LongText in one column.

Create a virtual column that formats it into proper HTML, replacing \n with <br>, like:

SUBSTITUTE([YourTextColumn], "\n", "<br>")

Show the virtual column in your views.

3. Switch to Markdown (if available): In some contexts, AppSheet supports Markdown rendering. If your view allows it, try using double spaces + newline or - for lists, etc.

4. Report to AppSheet: You’re absolutely right—this seems like a regression, and reporting it through the AppSheet support page with a clear example helps push a fix faster.

[Taufan]

Hi,

I'm having the same issue too, this morning the Markdown doesn't display line breaks as it usually does.
My long writing in AppSheet became messy.

😞

[Koichi_Tsuji]

@lizlynch 

It seems Google pushed some changes which resulted in the unexpected behaviors. (we have the same issue with our apps as well)

Could you escalate internally and let the devs to have a look?

[lizlynch]

All -- I have escalated this issue. Apologies for the inconvenience and thank you for reporting it. You can reach out to AppSheet Support in the future to make them aware of these types of issues. Thanks again for raising this issue!

[Koichi_Tsuji]

Thanks for escalating.

My private policy is not to get in touch with AppSheet support due to less quality of the services. I never ever solve the problems through them. So better to post the issue here in this community which is more productive to us.

[amyplin]

Hello, apologies for this - it's an unintended side effect of a change that was made last week and we will get this fixed in the next deployment. 

[Koichi_Tsuji]

@amyplin 

Thanks Amy for your response and actions. We stay tuned then.

Could you give us update once you solve the issue through the update from liz?

Thank you again

[amyplin]

Yes I'll include the updates in the Release Notes!