Elementor - "<" or ">" Stripped Out or Using Unexpected HTML Markers

Overview of the issue

When translating pages created with Elementor using WPML’s Advanced Translation Editor (ATE), characters like < (less than) or > (greater than) are stripped out or incorrectly interpreted as HTML tags.

Workaround

Please, make sure of having a full site backup of your site before proceeding.

• Open …/wp-content/plugins/sitepress-multilingual-cms/classes/xliff/class-wpml-tm-xliff-writer.php file.
• Look for line 407.
• Replace:

  	private function remove_line_breaks_inside_tags( $string ) {
  		return preg_replace_callback( '/(<[^>]*>)/m', array( $this, 'remove_line_breaks_inside_tag_callback' ), $string );
  	}
  
  	/**
  	 * @param array $matches
  	 *
  	 * @return string
  	 */
  	private function remove_line_breaks_inside_tag_callback( array $matches ) {
  		$tag_string = preg_replace( '/([\nr\t ]+)/', ' ', $matches[0] );
  		$tag_string = preg_replace( '/(<[\s]+)/', '<', $tag_string );
  		return preg_replace( '/([\s]+>)/', '>', $tag_string );
  	}
  

• With:

  	private function remove_line_breaks_inside_tags( $string ) {
  	    // Match only valid HTML tags (opening, closing, or self-closing)
  	    return preg_replace_callback( '/(<\/?[a-zA-Z][^<>]*>)/m', array( $this, 'remove_line_breaks_inside_tag_callback' ), $string );
  	}
  
  	/**
  	 * @param array $matches
  	 *
  	 * @return string
  	 */
  	private function remove_line_breaks_inside_tag_callback( array $matches ) {
  	    // Remove unnecessary spaces and line breaks inside valid HTML tags
  	    $tag_string = preg_replace( '/([\nr\t ]+)/', ' ', $matches[0] );
  	    $tag_string = preg_replace( '/(<[\s]+)/', '<', $tag_string );
  	    return preg_replace( '/([\s]+>)/', '>', $tag_string );
  	}