Thank you for the quick reply. No solution yet after the following:
– Deactivated all non-SimpleMembership plugins
– Changed theme to Twenty Fifteen (also tested 2014 and 2013 themes)
Linebreaks were still stripped during page rendering. I also tried removing all General Message Settings in Custom Message Add-On. No luck.
Paragraph spacing in content before the <!--more>
tag renders only when SimpleWordpress Membership plugin is deactivated.
Have scanned template and function files for any conflict with “_excerpt” in place of “_content”. No luck.
Regarding debug: it’s enabled. File had no data. I reset the log file and rec’d confirmation from server; no other data has been added to that file during today’s tests.
Lastly, I can add “p” breaks in Text Editor and they only disappear when switching to Visual Editor — the usual WP behavior.
Text Editor is a quick workaround but not permanent as site authors will be lost with HTML code.
Still puzzled!