# markdown character series crashed cell

**URL:** <https://talk.observablehq.com/t/markdown-character-series-crashed-cell/5066>\
**Category:** Feedback\
**Created:** [May 15, 2021, 6:18pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/markdown-character-series-crashed-cell/5066 "2021-05-15T18:18:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bmershon](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/bmershon/32/4979_2.png) [@bmershon](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/bmershon)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2021, 6:18pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/markdown-character-series-crashed-cell/5066/1 "2021-05-15T18:18:48Z")

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md`(1) crashes my cell. The completion of typing the last ')' in "md`(1) causes the `(1) to become repeated twice in the cell and cell/page causes an error and page crash.

![Screen Shot 2021-05-15 at 12.18.12 PM](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/uploads/observablehq/original/2X/5/5707647e0c14fdc00524e0d324bdc33bc9138430.png)

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**Author:** ![tophtucker](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/tophtucker/32/4781_2.png) [@tophtucker](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/tophtucker)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2021, 6:43pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/markdown-character-series-crashed-cell/5066/2 "2021-05-15T18:43:48Z")

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Yikes! Sorry Brooks, and thanks for the report. I can’t seem to reproduce that; could you make a screen recording of this happening, with your browser’s developer console open to show errors?

I’m just guessing from the appearance of that “Save” button but it looks like you’re on a Mac, in which case you can start a screen recording by pressing ⌘-Shift-5. To open the developer console in Chrome, Safari, or Firefox, press ⌘-⌥-I and click the “Console” tab. I’d also be happy to screenshare with you to try to reproduce and diagnose.

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**Author:** ![bmershon](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/bmershon/32/4979_2.png) [@bmershon](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/bmershon)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2021, 12:00am UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/markdown-character-series-crashed-cell/5066/3 "2021-05-16T00:00:37Z")

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If it makes you feel better I can’t reproduce it from scratch and that problem cell is gone. Clean notebook and clean cell and I can’t reproduce. But basically the behavior was such that adding the closing parenthesis to (1 in the example above produced the second `(1) that you see in the screenshot. And that was with autocomplete off. With autocomplete on or off for parentheses completion I can’t reproduce.

So sleep well for now 🙂

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**Author:** ![bmershon](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/bmershon/32/4979_2.png) [@bmershon](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/bmershon)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2021, 12:01am UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/markdown-character-series-crashed-cell/5066/4 "2021-05-16T00:01:41Z")

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I’ll screenshot next time something happens. I’m invested in Observable and I’ll do a better job of communicating the bugs if I encounter any. Plain english for odd bugs is sometimes less than sufficient 🙂

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**Author:** ![tophtucker](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/tophtucker/32/4781_2.png) [@tophtucker](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/tophtucker)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 5:29pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/markdown-character-series-crashed-cell/5066/5 "2021-05-18T17:29:16Z")

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Haha no worries about the plain English bug report, we welcome those too! I’ll keep an eye out, and you know where to find me.