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Powershell Component Monitor Output formatting now not working 2020.2.1

We have a powershell component monitor that returns a message which contains html tags to split the long message over multiple lines. Since the upgrade, this no longer works and just prints the whole text with the HTML tags. Meaning that the message field just flows over one line. It is like HTML is now being ignored in the ouput.

Is there a known fix for this? Or anything new we need to do in 2020.2.1 to achieve the same output?

Line in script:

$Connections += "" + $Connection.Username + "";

Output now just prints:

"user1@domain.comuser2@domain.comuser3@domain.comuser4@domain.com"

Used to print:

Any help or suggestions greatly appreciated.

Thank you

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jonathanswift

I haven't upgraded to 2020.2.1 yet, so I don't know about the HTML formatting, but I wanted to ask if everything went smoothly with the upgrade. I'm assuming you upgraded from 2020.2. Was it ok? No gotchas?

I can see on my test system (2020.2.1) if I look at the alert

"AppInsight for SQL: Alert me when my database file is running low on space"

I can see < has been replaced by &lt everywhere.

If doesn't format correctly if I Execute an alert.

If I add my own HTML using normal HTML syntax, that works.

Right at the bottom of the alert I added;

test <-- added spaces as this forum editor complains about HTML in the post.

All the rest of the alert is incorrectly formatted, but this part is displayed correctly in the email.

Not sure if that helps, it seems to confirm what you say, but for alerts. I have no Powershell alerts that return any HTML, although I was toying with the idea.

ps. On my 2020.2 installation, I looked at the same alert, and it has proper HTML

< td >Remaining free space: < /td >
< td >${N=SwisEntity;M=Database.SqlDatabaseAlert.DatabaseFreeSpace}< /td >
< /tr >
< /table >

(* spaces added due to forum rejecting HTML)

shuth

I vaguely recall seeing somewhere this was a "fix" in the new versions to not interpret HTML in script outputs as a security measure.

However, I thought it was implemented in 2020.2 so curious why it is working in there. I think @frak might have more information?

EDIT: I just saw your post saying this is deliberate.

https://thwack.solarwinds.com/t5/SAM-Discussions/New-bugs-in-latest-release-2020-2-1/m-p/603148/highlight/true#M42627

HTML in 2020.2.1 has been disabled due to a security issue, this seems to affect Alerts, but is confirmed as disabled for script monitors.

"HTML formatting is no longer supported for scripts monitor due to some security reasons

HTML formatting is under feature request to restore in a better way." - from support.

mesverrum

That'll be bad news for the hundreds of clients I set up html enhanced alert messages for over the years...

frak

I logged a ticket when all my html encoded (mostly where a table was required) monitors became an ugly display of HTML.

This was broken for 2020.2RC.

Support told me it was a 'fix' for XSS and was being applied all over including custom tables/queries (this through me as HTML is a vital option on columns in custom tables - if I want things to actually look nice). I was never able to get the 'list' that kept being talked about though I did try for several weeks, I did give up asking, eventually.

They did eventually say there was now an internal 'feature request' to restore the HTML ability without the XSS issues - but as it is internal I could get no details, and point no thwack people to it.

Removing HTML ability from alerts is a new one on me - but would also break things I expect.