that is odd as you can see my code and i closed out the icon tag even before i started the anchor link. found the issue.
<i class=”fa fa-heart” /> = bad
<i class=”fa fa-heart” ></i> = bad
<i class=”fa fa-heart”/> = bad
<i class=”fa fa-heart”> </i> = bad
<i class=”fa fa-heart”></i> = good
for some reason something is not escapting properly and so it is not working unless it is perfectly input. tried to duplicate in genesis, oceanwp, 2017 theme and all 5 work fine, just generate will not work unless you use the last one.