---
title: Task Description Caused Errors
description: "If your feed fails when creating a task, the problem may be the **task description**. Asana only supports certain kinds of rich text and may reject unsupported content. #### Supported HTML The following HTML tags are supported in task descriptions:…"
url: "https://brightleafdigital.io/docs/task-description-caused-errors/"
updated: "2026-10-18"
category: Integrate Asana with Gravity Forms / Troubleshooting
---

# Task Description Caused Errors

If your feed fails when creating a task, the problem may be the **task description**. Asana only supports certain kinds of rich text and may reject unsupported content.

#### Supported HTML

The following HTML tags are supported in task descriptions:

- `<body>`, `<h1>`, `<h2>`
- `<strong>`, `<em>`, `<u>`, `<s>`
- `<code>`
- `<ol>`, `<ul>`, `<li>`
- `<a>`, `<blockquote>`, `<pre>`
- `<hr>`, `<img>`

Anything else will be stripped out or converted, which can lead to unexpected results.

#### Automatic Recovery

The plugin now reduces these failures in two ways:

- **Malformed markup is auto-balanced.** Before sending, the description is corrected so unclosed or orphaned tags (common when a description contains code or pasted AI output with literal `<` `>` characters) cannot break the request.
- **Plain-text retry.** If Asana still rejects the rich-text description, the plugin automatically retries once with the description as plain text, so the task is created instead of failing.

#### Description Format (per feed)

Each feed has a **Description Format** setting:

- **Rich text (HTML)** *(default)* — supported tags are rendered, and the markup is auto-corrected if needed.
- **Plain text** — angle brackets are shown as literal text instead of being interpreted. Choose this when the description contains code or AI-generated content (for example a code review) so tags such as `<strong>` appear as text rather than being treated as formatting.

#### Common Pitfalls

- Using the **{all_fields} merge tag**: This generates a full table, which isn’t supported. Avoid using it in the description.
- Adding **unsupported fields**: Some fields (like the Signature field) can produce markup that causes task creation to fail.

#### What To Do

- Use only the supported HTML tags listed above.
- Instead of {all_fields}, selectively include the fields you need with individual merge tags.
- If a specific field seems to cause errors (e.g., Signature), remove it from the description mapping.
- If errors persist:
  - Try simplifying the description to plain text.
  - Enable Gravity Forms logging.
  - Contact support with the entry ID, description content, and error message.