jQuery replaceWith(responseText) started encoding quotes as " unexpectedly

Question

I'm encountering an issue where the jQuery replaceWith(responseText) function modifies the attribute values of elements by replacing double quotes with ".

Original responseText:

<div id='whatsapp_icon' onclick='whatsappClick("37112345678", "")'></div>

After using replaceWith:

<div id="whatsapp_icon" onclick="whatsappClick(&quot;37112345678&quot;, &quot;&quot;)"></div>

This issue is recent, and previously the method worked as expected. Notably:

• The issue does not appear on all systems, but on most systems.
• I tried to disable all extensions in browsers, without result (and this behavior appeared not simultaneously, but during one or two days on completely independent systems).
• The code hasn't been modified recently.
• The jQuery library wasn't updated.
• The .html() function exhibits the same behavior.

What could be causing this change in behavior?

Answer 1

Sometimes browser updates changes how HTML is being rendered and parsed. As you already mentioned the code hasn't been change neither the jQuery library nor the code. So a browser update might affect the way attribute values are displayed and processed.