Forum Discussion
Content Not Published
Sometimes I get a Content Not Published error so I can't publish my post, and I can't tell why.
Content Not Published
Your post contains invalid HTML. Remove the following invalid tags before publishing: a, a (data-bi-type), div, li-image, li-table, li-tcols, li-td, li-tsectionMost recently, it appeared when I tried to edit spoiler titles where I had two images inside two spoilers (same as you see here), after I had already published the post. I was trying to edit the post. But it would not take it the second time around. I think it has something to do with elements used by the rich text editor. I made the changes by deleting both spoilers and both images, saving the post, refreshing, editing again, adding the spoilers and images back in and saving again. It's very annoying and frustrating like that. It's not a validation error, like when you add a link and it complains about it. It says the post contains invalid HTML.
2 Replies
hi Nullable
The "Content Not Published – your post contains invalid HTML" error you're seeing in the Microsoft Tech Community (MTC) is a known pain point
Why it happens ?
- The editor inserts Microsoft-specific tags like <li-image>, <li-table>, etc. during content creation.
- These tags aren’t valid HTML but are used by the editor to render features like images, spoilers, and tables.
- When you edit a post, especially with complex elements like spoilers with images, the platform sometimes fails to properly re-render or sanitize these elements, leading to this error.
How to work around it (what you're doing is correct but here's a refined version)
- Delete the spoiler sections and images completely.
- Save the post.
- Refresh the page to reload a clean editor context.
- Re-insert the spoilers and images using the editor toolbar only — don’t paste from other sources.
- Save again.
You’re basically forcing the platform to purge bad internal formatting and rebuild with clean elements.
If editing :
If you're doing repeated editing of rich posts:
- Use Notepad or VS Code to write your content in Markdown or plain text first.
- Build sections step-by-step using the MTC editor toolbar — especially for:
- Images
- Spoilers
- Code blocks
- Avoid switching back and forth between "Rich Text" and "HTML" tabs during editing — this is known to corrupt tag rendering.
Avoid these HTML elements in edited MTC posts
Tag
Why it's blocked
<li-image>
Not valid HTML; editor-only
<li-table>, <li-tcols>, <li-td>, <li-tsection>
MTC-specific table rendering; often gets corrupted
<a> with data-* attributes
May conflict with sanitization rules
<div> inside spoilers or lists
Breaks layout or flags as unsafe
- Allen
Community Manager
Good reply sir, just to clarify though the issue your hitting Nullable is that users who are new to the community can't include advanced formatting in their post. This means until you have participated enough in the community you can't insert things like tables, images, links into your posts.
The solution provided by Surya_Narayana is still correct its just its not a pain point, its by design, although I appreciate it maybe a pain!
