HTML Tags Getting Stripped Out Of WordPress Via XMLRPC

Written by Jason on April 8th, 2009
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Got to love ever updating technology!

A few days ago I was setting up a new blog and could not figure out why the posts were all messed up. I had my programmers look through everything and nothing seemed to make sense. The problem was that once the post left my system and went into my WordPress installation, the html tags were being completely stripped out.

So instead of the html in the post looking like this…

<a href=”http://www.somesite.com”>Anchor text</a>

…it was looking like this…

ahref=”http://www.somesite.com”Anchor text/a

So… I Googled it!

Sure enough there was mention of an issue…

When posting from an application that uses the wordpress xmlrpc api, leading angle brackets are being stripped from the post.

…and thankfully someone already had a plugin fix for this.

http://josephscott.org/code/wordpress/plugin-libxml2-fix/

BUT… For some reason I could not get Joseph Scott’s plugin to work me.. so I put my main php guru on it to get it working for me… and voila, it worked!

So, the moral of the story is…

i. If you are not using XMLRPC – never mind this post.

ii. If you are using XMLRPC and everything is ok – never mind this post.

iii. If you are using xmlrpc and everything is NOT ok -

A) This is ultimately resolved with the release of PHP 5.2.9 and libxml2 2.7.3. –> So see if your host will do that for you

B) Download either Joseph Scott’s plugin and if that does not work, try my modification.

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18 Responses to “HTML Tags Getting Stripped Out Of WordPress Via XMLRPC”

  1. Helping make money online says:
    April 9, 2009 at 12:30 pm

    font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none; } img {border:none;} John Cow dot ComHTML Tags Getting Stripped Out Of WordPress Via XMLRPCPosted: 08 Apr 2009 05:21 AM PDT Got to love ever updating technology! A few days ago I was setting up a new blog and could not figure out why the posts were all messed up. I had my programmers look through everything and nothing seemed to make sense. The problem

  2. Amuzigi.com says:
    May 1, 2009 at 3:40 am

    enormes problemas en la visualización de tu sitio. Esto parece ser debido a un fallo en la publicación XML-RPC de WordPress que ya se está manejando en el Trac pero, de momento, solucionable gracias a un plugin de Joseph Scott o unaversión modificada del fichero libxml2 publicada por John Cow. Así que ya sabes, si usas Windows Live Writer, ecto, Qumana o cualquier otro cliente de blogging de escritorio, y hasta que no se solucione el problema en la siguiente actualización de WordPress, usa el plugin o el fichero

  3. Ayuda WordPress says:
    April 30, 2009 at 10:02 pm

    enormes problemas en la visualización de tu sitio. Esto parece ser debido a un fallo en la publicación XML-RPC de WordPress que ya se está manejando en el Trac pero, de momento, solucionable gracias a un plugin de Joseph Scott o unaversión modificada del fichero libxml2 publicada por John Cow. Así que ya sabes, si usas Windows Live Writer, ecto, Qumana o cualquier otro cliente de blogging de escritorio, y hasta que no se solucione el problema en la siguiente actualización de WordPress, usa el plugin o el fichero

  4. Paul U says:
    April 8, 2009 at 9:09 am

    I like the first moral of the story. It is very funny, LOL.

    :smile:

  5. Joseph Scott says:
    April 8, 2009 at 11:29 am

    Your modified version of the plugin unconditionally changes the XML. My original plugin checks to see if PHP is using a known problem version of libxml2. Did you perhaps update to libxml2 2.7.3 (the first fixed version) and not update PHP?

    Joseph Scott's lastest..History Of The Federal Debt
  6. jobucks says:
    April 10, 2009 at 6:22 am

    You’re never mind this post lol….

  7. Wordpress HTML Tags Stripped Problem Fix – Download Plugin | TECH YARD says:
    April 10, 2009 at 1:20 pm

    [...] and It works. Incase the plugin does not work you can also try out a modified version available at JohnCow [ Direct Download Link ] that implements the fix unconditionally irrespective of version of the xml [...]

  8. Robert says:
    April 10, 2009 at 2:58 pm

    Hi John,

    I’m so glad you brought this up. I’ve been having a problem with my HTML tags disappearing and it’s been driving me crazy. I’ll be downloading the plug-in ASAP and see if that gets the problem resolved.

    Thanks again for all you do,

    Robert

  9. Roy says:
    April 10, 2009 at 9:06 pm

    should have read the moral of story first lol

  10. Mxyzplk says:
    April 11, 2009 at 4:27 am

    what is XMLRPC???

  11. Make Money Online - Blogger Rise says:
    April 13, 2009 at 7:23 am

    try this tips now…thanx :)

  12. bisnis internet says:
    April 13, 2009 at 12:05 pm

    Thanks for sharing this, i learn a lots..

  13. Info Gaptek says:
    April 14, 2009 at 12:08 am

    @ Mxyzplk: XML-RPC is a protocol where you create an XML packet and post it to a web site which supports XML-RPC to accept a blog for pinging.

    Info Gaptek's lastest..Game Mafia Wars Di Facebook
  14. David Doit says:
    April 14, 2009 at 10:34 am

    Lol, funny first part…. I was having trouble at first but did the same as you and googled for a solution.

    Now let’s get rich!

  15. David Koh says:
    April 16, 2009 at 5:26 am

    Hello,

    Thanks for the information. However, does it affect EVERYONE using XMLRPC?……or does it just happen to a few random people?

  16. Robert says:
    May 16, 2009 at 12:01 am

    Hi John,

    I'm so glad you brought this up. I've been having a problem with my HTML tags disappearing and it's been driving me crazy. I'll be downloading the plug-in ASAP and see if that gets the problem resolved.

    Thanks again for all you do,
    Robert

  17. Suzzane says:
    May 19, 2009 at 2:01 am

    I have used the mdifies fix and still cannot get it to work.
    My version of libXML is 2.6

  18. Ganthet says:
    May 23, 2009 at 11:39 pm

    Your modified plugin worked great! Thanks for sharing.