Formatting post

Have you tried:

– deactivating all plugins to see if this resolves the problem? If this works, re-activate the plugins one by one until you find the problematic plugin(s).

– switching to the default theme to rule out any theme-related problems?

– resetting the plugins folder by FTP or phpMyAdmin? Sometimes, an apparently inactive plugin can still cause problems.

– re-uploading the wp-admin and wp-includes folders from a fresh download of WordPress?

Thank you
I am on it

deactivated all the plugins and it didn’t help either the weird formatting situation or the ability to preview or see private posts.

checking the theme now.

Changed the theme and that didn’t solve either problem.

I have also deleted any non used plug-ins

For items 1 & 2 in your list of issues, a link to a page demonstrating these problems would help.

As for the html editor, I use it all of the time and have never seen it condense the markup.

yeah it is weird
but i put this in for text:

After volley of retaliatory missed calls and text messages, I collected myself and prepared for the day in which I would be cooking in what I could only imagine was waist-deep water. Collecting a couple gallons of coffee from the aforementioned purveyor we dove head first into what could have only been a nightmare.

Upon breaking into the confines of our temporary home, I was relieved to see that there was no standing water and the only real causality for the evening was everyone’s sleep and a rug of Crate and Barrel origin. Since I had not been there I leave it to Mayur to recount the evenings happenings to you

and this is what i got out and not matter what i did in the HTML editor to reformat it it always looked like this. It removes <br /> tags in ever instance and replaces them with <p>

<p>After volley of retaliatory missed calls and text messages, I collected myself and prepared for the day in which I would be cooking in what I could only imagine was waist-deep water. Collecting a couple gallons of coffee from the aforementioned purveyor we dove head first into what could have only been a nightmare.</p> <p>Upon breaking into the confines of our temporary home, I was relieved to see that there was no standing water and the only real causality for the evening was everyone’s sleep and a rug of Crate and Barrel origin. Since I had not been there I leave it to Mayur to recount the evenings happenings to you:</p>

Preview post 1
https://www.arazorashinyknife.com/?p=178160034&preview=true

Private post
The preview doesn’t work (says i do not have a permission to preview drafts):
https://www.arazorashinyknife.com/private-post-test/?preview=true&preview_id=178160036&preview_nonce=215e4d7e61

direct link with 404 error
https://www.arazorashinyknife.com/private-post-test

Thank you again for your time and assistance

What you describe is the normal way in which WordPress works when it parses content text. Blocks of text separated by a blank line are assumed to be paragraphs and are markup up accordingly.

If you only want single line breaks between the text blocks, don’t leave blank lines between them.

but the formatting of the html text is normal. not letting me separate things like this

<p> </p>[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Brian Sullivan, checking courses 1-4 before service Photo: Sally Ryan"]
<a href="https://www.avclub.com/chicago/articles/7000-calories-later-bootleg-dining-with-a-razor-a,23200/" target="_blank">
<img class="   " title="Brian Sullivan, checking courses 1-4 before service"
src="https://arazorashinyknife.com/wp-content/gallery/2009-01chicago/aaimg_0313.jpg"
alt="Brian Sullivan, checking courses 1-4 before service" width="500" height="334" /></a>[/caption]

<p>
<a href="https://www.avclub.com/chicago/articles/7000-calories-later-bootleg-dining-with-a-razor-a,23200/" target="_blank">
<img class="alignright" title="Veal Demi-Glace - Photo: Sally Ryan"
src="https://arazorashinyknife.com/wp-content/gallery/2009-01chicago/aaimg_0332.jpg" 

alt="Veal Demi-Glace" width="160" height="240" /></a></p> 

<p>Upon arriving in Chicago we were a flurry of action, transforming our lovely host’s beautiful condo into a functioning kitchen and dining room. We were again blessed with a painful cold snap, which we used to our benefit by turning what was supposed to be a washer and dryer room into a walk-in freezer by opening the windows. Seems silly but this open and flat cold space was the key to being able to make this apartment a functional space to serve the meal.</p>

It turns that into this every time:
<p> </p>[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Brian Sullivan, checking courses 1-4 before service Photo: Sally Ryan"]<a href="https://www.avclub.com/chicago/articles/7000-calories-later-bootleg-dining-with-a-razor-a,23200/" target="_blank"><img class=" " title="Brian Sullivan, checking courses 1-4 before service" src="https://arazorashinyknife.com/wp-content/gallery/2009-01chicago/aaimg_0313.jpg" alt="Brian Sullivan, checking courses 1-4 before service" width="500" height="334" /></a>[/caption]<p><a href="https://www.avclub.com/chicago/articles/7000-calories-later-bootleg-dining-with-a-razor-a,23200/" target="_blank"><img class="alignright" title="Veal Demi-Glace - Photo: Sally Ryan" src="https://arazorashinyknife.com/wp-content/gallery/2009-01chicago/aaimg_0332.jpg" alt="Veal Demi-Glace" width="160" height="240" /></a></p> <p>Upon arriving in Chicago we were a flurry of action, transforming our lovely host’s beautiful condo into a functioning kitchen and dining room. We were again blessed with a painful cold snap, which we used to our benefit by turning what was supposed to be a washer and dryer room into a walk-in freezer by opening the windows. Seems silly but this open and flat cold space was the key to being able to make this apartment a functional space to serve the meal.</p>

a huge block with out formatting returns?

any ideas about the private and preview posts?