diff --git a/scripts/lua/modules/alert_utils.lua b/scripts/lua/modules/alert_utils.lua
index 98e3293852..eb8c7c8556 100644
--- a/scripts/lua/modules/alert_utils.lua
+++ b/scripts/lua/modules/alert_utils.lua
@@ -2041,7 +2041,6 @@ function alert_utils.formatAlertNotification(notif, options)
 
    if options.nohtml then
       msg = msg .. noHtml(alert_message)
-      msg = msg:gsub(' ', "")
    else
       msg = msg .. alert_message
    end
diff --git a/scripts/lua/modules/lua_utils.lua b/scripts/lua/modules/lua_utils.lua
index aad6ee4915..f73a218f16 100644
--- a/scripts/lua/modules/lua_utils.lua
+++ b/scripts/lua/modules/lua_utils.lua
@@ -650,10 +650,13 @@ function noHtml(s)
       return (gsub( str, '(&(#?x?)([%d%a]+);)', entitySwap ))
    end
 
-   local cleaned = s:gsub("<[aA].->(.-)</[aA]>","%1")
+   local cleaned = s:gsub("<[aA] .->(.-)</[aA]>","%1")
+      :gsub("<abbr .->(.-)</abbr>","%1")
+      :gsub("<span .->(.-)</span>","%1")
       :gsub("%s*<[iI].->(.-)</[iI]>","%1")
-      :gsub("<.->(.-)</.->","%1") -- note: this does not handle nested tags
+      :gsub("<.->(.-)</.->","%1") -- note: keep as last as this does not handle nested tags
       :gsub("^%s*(.-)%s*$", "%1")
+      :gsub('&nbsp;', " ")
 
    return unescape(cleaned)
 end