MultiMarkdown to RTF errors on certain selected text

[disaac]

Attempting to run the md - Convert - MultiMarkdown to RTF.workflow service with text selected that contains markdown list elements with bold **text** will result in the following error: Automator encountered an error running this workflow: “Couldn’t communicate with a helper application.”
for reference.

Example text that would reproduce when selected:

* Item 1  **Hello**
* Item 2 **BoldText** `gitproject_1` and `gitproject_2`

I verified that if run in automator with the same text but passing the text via "Get Specified Text" Action instead of receiving current selected text through the service the conversion happens successfully. This indicates that the issue is not with the workflow steps but Automators processing of the Selected text delivered to the service from the applications.

Additional debugging is needed to determine why this workflow only errors when handling certain text delivered from an application.

Observations:

• Length of selected text does not matter.
• If the error is received from selected text such as the example provided, attempting to select text that worked previously will start to fail. As mentioned in this gist you can in some cases recover from the error by selecting some other text and copying it to your clipboard then selecting the previously known working text and running service again.
• Issue is only seen when text is passed through selected text if obtained through "Get Specified Text" in automator and passed to actions workflow will always succeed.
• Likely an Automator bug and nothing to do with workflow.

Environment

MultiMarkdown 6 v6.4.0
ProductName:	Mac OS X
ProductVersion:	10.14.3
BuildVersion:	18D109
Automator: Version 2.9 (444.39)

References:

• Similar issue reported in gist