Issue using new editor template - HTML macro error

Owned by Stacy Coakley
Last updated: Jul 29, 2020 by Ture Hoefner (Unlicensed)Version comment
4 min read

Live previews of the content of an HTML macro in page edit mode do not work due to limitations of Atlassian's page draft mode for their new "fabric" page editor.  

We are using HTML-98 to track the issue and will address it when Atlassian adds support to their new fabric editing experience for rendering previews of macros in page edit mode.


Problem

In page edit mode, using the new "fabric" page editor:

Upon page publish, the macro should render normally.

When the page is edited again, the macro may randomly render one or the other of either the message above, or the one below:

__confluenceADFMigrationUnsupportedContentInternalExtension__

If you see this second message in the editor, the only way to edit the body of the HTML macro is to delete it and create a new one.

Cause

Users will receive this error and message display when attempting to use the HTML macro within a page created with the new editing experience (aka fabric-editor, next gen editor, v2 editor).  For many Confluence customers, especially new ones, the new editing experience is the only option available in Confluence.

In this article, Atlassian states:

Note: Many 3rd party apps (that is, macros that have been downloaded from the Marketplace) are experiencing additional bugs in the new editing experience. We are working on fixing these, and have avoided rolling the experience out to new pages for the sites affected.

Please see the following Jira issue for the latest status update: HTML-98

Use Case 1

Some users are given a choice to choose the new editor, 'Try the new editing experience', or the original editor 'Blank page' as in the below screenshot.

Use Case 2

Increasingly more users are not given the option to use the old editor.  In this case, 'Blank page' is the new editor.

Atlassian's new "Fabric" / Version 2 editor is extremely buggy and they continue to roll out updates which have a history of breaking apps from Atlassian Vendors.   That is the case here. See https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-65717.  We are looking for work arounds to these issues,  but please understand this bug and almost all such bugs are 100% caused by the Atlassian platform itself at this time.   Unfortunately they appear to not be testing apps against their updates at this time.

UPDATE: As of July 24th, 2019, Atlassian has committed to fixing the problems with the new editing experience that cause the issues described on this page.  They currently estimate a delivery of the fix within a few weeks, but have a history of slipping their date commitments.  We are optimistic that they have a solid plan and will execute in a timely fashion.  Please bear with us while we wait for their fixes to arrive.

Workaround

For Use Case 1 simply choose the original editor.

For Use Case 2 you can convert the new editor to the old editor by completing the following steps.  Proceed with caution.

Read Before Proceeding

This workaround has risks.  Do not proceed if you are uncomfortable with any of the following:

  1. This workaround converts a new editor (v2) page to the old editor (v1) page . You will not be able to use the v2 editor functions and the layout will look a bit different.
  2. Converting pages from the v2 editor to the v1 editor erases any content that's on the page at time of conversion
    1. You can create a new page then copy/paste your content to the new page after you've converted it to the v1 editor
  1. Create a NEW page and publish it
    1. (warning) This is critical.  Any content that's on the page will be erased when converting the page to the v1 editor.
  2. Go into page edit mode (click the pencil icon) and look at the URL.  It should have edit-v2/<page id>
  3. Replace edit-v2/ with create?from=
  4. Press Enter so the new URL takes
  5. Name and publish your page
  6. You now have a v1 editor page that's ready for the HTML macro
  7. Add the macro per usual and include your HTML
  8. Publish the page

Per this article, Atlassian states:

We will no longer be converting existing pages to the new experience - instead, you will only see the new experience when you create a new page. ...

We will re-evaluate this at some point in the future, and we do plan on eventually sunsetting the old editing experience, but not until we’re sure that this is the best decision for our users.


We will be updating the macro to account for the new editor.  You may track it's progress via HTML-97 - Getting issue details... STATUS .