Extraneous <p> tag with :before pseudo element.

[tagonline]

After upgrading to WordPress 5.7, I have noticed some random <p> tags with :before pseudo elements rendering in the DOM. This causes formatting to become spacey since in many cases, <p>'s have margins defaulted on them.

[tagonline]

This screenshot comes from a client's website, ​https://stcassianchurchuppermontclair.org/. I have currently reverted to 5.6.2 for the time being.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Hi there, welcome to WordPress Trac!

Thanks for the report, we're already tracking this issue in #52764.

Just to clarify, these extra <p></p> tags are not new in 5.7, but they are visible now in some scenarios where they were previously hidden. This is being tracked in #52764 for WordPress 5.7.1, see comment:8:ticket:52764 and later comments for some more context.

As a workaround, this snippet can be added to Appearance → Customize → Additional CSS:

body p:empty:before {
	content: none;
}