Why did Google Docs suddenly start consolidating all multiple-newline sequences into single newlines?

Question

Up until yesterday, documents looking like this (note the 2, 3, then 4 newlines between letters):

a

b


c



d

Would be copied and pasted in plain text (e.g. in a plain text area on a web page, or a plain text editor like VSCode or GEdit) just like they look in the document, and just as I typed them (pressing Enter twice at the end of a line, no "after paragraph" spacing tomfoolery.)

As of Jan 11th, 2018, it seems the exact same document (and every other document I've tried so far) now gets copied with double newlines stripped down to single ones:

a
b
c
d

Context

For my particular use case this is really annoying, because I'm editing Markdown and this necessitates an extra regex replacement to put all the newlines back every time I change a document. Since I often make changes using the Google Doc as the "single source of truth" (because of its collaboration and history features), then copy and paste them into another context where they're actually used, this would mean adding a hundred regex replacements to my daily workflow for nothing.

What I've tried (to no avail)

1. Installing the Docs Offline plugin, the one you're annoyingly prompted to install whenever you use Copy from the context menu instead of Ctrl+C, and reloading the page.
2. Restarting my computer completely (and not restoring tabs, using fresh ones for any Google Docs attempts.)
3. Using Firefox instead of Chromium (and Firefox never had this problem before today, either).
4. Asking a colleague to try this in Windows (I'm using Linux Mint)--it's also broken there (for him, at least, contrary to one commenter's experience, perhaps due to inconsistent rollout from Google? I have no idea.)

Why did they change it? Will they change it back?

Answer 1

"The first thing to try" when this kind of situations occurs with a web application is to check if the problem persist using the browser in incognito / safe mode with all the extensions disabled in order to discard that the cause of the problem be the cache, cookies or an extension.

As a workaround, download the file as plain text: File > Download as ... > Plain Text (.txt)

---

The problem could be related to the fact that applications could use different ways to set a new line.

• Some applications use \n
• Other use \r\n

The above could be inherited from the operative system, could be set by the developer.

Another cause could be related to the interaction of the user environment:

• Operative System
• Web browser
• Web browser plug-ins / extensions
• Web application
• Installed application
• ...

Reference

• Whats the difference between \r and \n?

Answer 2

Apparently as of today it's working again (at least on my end.) The advice I was given was to try it in an incognito window if I see it happen again.