Horizontal lines appearing between blocks in Outlook 2016; <div></div> in raw source

[MCHT-Collier]

Starting this week, we are seeing horizontal lines, edge to edge, appearing between blocks in Outlook 2016 Windows app.

When we look in the raw source, there are empty <div></div> tags at those locations.

Screenshot attached.

[MCHT-Collier]

We do not have any other planned fixes or workarounds to provide as these lines are an issue within Outlook and this issue has affected us and many other email marketing providers. Microsoft is aware of the issue and our teams are closely watching for fixes that are made available. If any are made available, our product teams will take advantage of them and make any necessary updates. I certainly understand how important it is for your email to display properly for your contacts and I'm sorry that we do not have any updates at this time.

[Caitlin_M]

We do not have any other planned fixes or workarounds to provide as these lines are an issue within Outlook and this issue has affected us and many other email marketing providers. Microsoft is aware of the issue and our teams are closely watching for fixes that are made available. If any are made available, our product teams will take advantage of them and make any necessary updates. I certainly understand how important it is for your email to display properly for your contacts and I'm sorry that we do not have any updates at this time.

[MCHT-Collier]

Changing the background color isn't an acceptable solution, so I hope we'll be notified when the engineers resolve the problem.

[Frankie_P]

Hi @MCHT-Collier 

I apologize this workaround may not be exactly what you're looking for. We have however added you to our queue to be notified when this experience is resolved.

[CaraK85]

Any update on this. It's looks just awful in Outlook

[Alex_S]

Hi @CaraK85 

Thanks for reaching out in the Community regarding the issue with horizontal lines in Outlook. We know how important it is for your emails to look consistent across all email platforms. 

One additional potential workaround we have found is that the lines seem to appear at the bottom of a table. So in some cases, you can merge the multiple blocks in to one block to reduce the number of lines appearing in the email. 

Please let us know if you have any other questions on this. We're happy to help!

Thanks! 

[CaraK85]

Is there an estimate on this fix?

We are seeing this issue in Outlook 2016 and 365

[Alex_S]

Hi @CaraK85 

We don't have a time estimate for resolution as this is something we are waiting on Outlook to resolve on their end. This is has to do with how those two versions of outlook read HTML code so it is out of our control. 

Please let us know if you have any further questions on this. 

Thanks!

[Canton123]

We are experiencing this as well and it is very frustrating.  I would like to see a solution soon.

[Brigitte_P]

Hey there @Canton123 thanks for reaching out to us on the community! We can certainly understand how you feel about this, unfortunately this is an Outlook specific bug- rather than a Constant Contact bug. We are working with Outlook and tracking this on our end, however, any resolution will be coming from them directly.

The lines that appear are coming from whatever the background color your campaign is set to, so it may help to match the Outer Background Color of your campaign with the Inner Background Color. You can find out how to do this by Clicking Here.

Luckily this seems to only happen sporadically with newer versions of Outlook. (Meaning that this will not appear for everyone who has Outlook, it is pretty uncommon). We appreciate your patience as we work with Outlook to resolve this, please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any other questions or concerns!

[T.O]

Hi - any luck with this? I'm still seeing them in outlook. It really has added so much time to building a newsletter the past year to fight with my template every month to get rid of as many lines as possible. It was never like that in years before. I've even started with fresh templates over the past year to see if that would help. I'm not kidding when I say I spend more time fighting with the blocks to get rid of these extra lines than I do putting together our newsletter. Bummer is our org uses outlook so although many of our guests won't see the problem, all of our org does. 

[Frankie_P]

Hi @T.O 

I apologize you too are having this experience with your email campaigns! At this time there is not currently an update for this. We are however still in the process of troubleshooting this and have added you to our queue to be notified when it is resolved. Have you tried any of the previously shared workarounds? These workarounds being to: 

1. Match the Outer Background Color with the Inner Background Color.
2. Merge multiple blocks into one if the line seems to appear at the bottom of a table.

[MurrayW6]

Come on, ConstantContact! It's been more than a year since this was brought up and we are still experiencing this today. Please stop passing the buck to Outlook. This is clearly a ConstantContact issue that needs to be resolved by ConstantContact. Other emails don't have this issue in Outlook, so it is obviously a CC issue. Can someone pay attention to this? Please???

[BreannaF36]

I have found that the suggested workaround from CC rarely works, please fix this issue!

I do not enjoy explaining myself to project managers every few weeks.

[NHHistory]

We are having the same problem, using the third-generation editor, and while the workaround to match up the inner and outer background colors is effective, it's not a sustainable long-term solution. It's very limiting in terms of design and it's quite frustrating.

[ThomasM8187]

I am having the same issue. I have 10 horizontal lines throughout my news letter. Matching the inner background to the outer background is not an option. I don't see this with any other newsletters. Please fix how you do your tables and stop blaming Outlook. 

[Zoe_H]

Hello @ThomasM8187,

I apologize you to are having this experience with your email campaigns! At this time there is not currently an update for this. We are however still in the process of troubleshooting this and have added you to our queue to be notified when it is resolved.

[SusanF603]

Add me to the list .. I have a client who sees the same issue on his newsletters sent via CC and opened in outlook.

Frustrating at best.

[Zoe_H]

Hello @SusanF603,

I apologize you to are having this experience with your email campaigns! I have added you to our queue to be notified when it is resolved.

[MarketingCCNEK]

This is also affecting us. Changing the inner and outer backgrounds did not solve the issue.

[CorrineC3]

I am currently having this same issue. To be honest, I have seen comments from 2017 from customers complaining about the line issue. I just experienced this myself today and I am utterly frustrated. It seems like such a miniscule problem, but it's a big pain in my butt. I should not have to alter my original design to something different because of this. I understand the workaround works, but I don't want my email outer background to match my inner background...then the whole email clashes and it looks weird. Constant Contact claims this is an issue with Outlook and all third-party email vendors, but I find that very hard to believe. PLEASE LOOK INTO THIS AND MAKE A PUSH TO FIX THIS. I really would hate to look for other third-party email vendors