Hi @lifeinthecave,
Thanks for reaching out.
Cornerstone and Visual Composer are different builders and you can’t port each content to one another. It will always require rebuilding. But it’s not mandatory to rebuild your content to the cornerstone, you can still use visual composer. The only downside with that is you’ll not able to utilize new features provided by cornerstone since Visual Composer is only limited to X Legacy integration (old elements).
With that, it should always work as long as you’re only utilizing the legacy elements within Visual Composer.
And if you’re referring to cornerstone content issue (from old to new), it’s probably related to classic elements versus v2 elements. The v2 elements are new elements with many features but it’s still not mandatory, your content created from classic elements should still work, and you’re still free to create it from classic elements.
Sometime in the last few months, anything I built with the older framework has broken. All of the background images are gone, none of the essential grids work and other issues.
There are similar issues and due to caches or libraries aren’t loaded. Re-adding them within classic text element should fix it. You can also check in Admin > X > Settings > Permissions > Macros if you wish to enforce specific type of elements for the current role.

But yes, it’s unavoidable to ever-evolving features especially if there is a big gap between your old version and the new version. There is added backward-compatibility for older version but later removed or deprecated to prevent bloat so it’s advisable to update it regularly than jumping from very old versions and newer.
In your case, it’s due to malformed HTML/content. Example, this is your added content
<h6 style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="color: #ffffff;">$35</span></strong>
<strong><span style="color: #ffffff;"> $25 / Student & Low Income</span></strong>
<strong><span style="color: #ffffff;"> + Shipping</span></strong></h6>
<p style="text-align: center;">
As you can see, there is opening <p style="text-align: center;">
, but no closing </p>
. And it should be like this
<h6 style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="color: #ffffff;">$35</span></strong>
<strong><span style="color: #ffffff;"> $25 / Student & Low Income</span></strong>
<strong><span style="color: #ffffff;"> + Shipping</span></strong></h6>
Another sample are elements that aren’t properly nested or without the proper open element, example
[highlight type="dark"]<span style="color: #ffffff;">FOR KNIGHT MATCHING FUND</a></span>[/highlight]</strong></h6>
It should be like this
[highlight type="dark"]<span style="color: #ffffff;">FOR KNIGHT MATCHING FUND</span>[/highlight]
There is no <a>
, <strong>
, and <h6>
so there should be no closing element like </a>
, </strong>
, and </h6>
.
I see a lot of them, I recommend fixing them manually as the builder will not able to fix it. You can edit your elements without the preview by clicking the skeleton mode.

Thanks!