The second &#x2714 should be &#x2714, steps to reproduce is just put that code into the email to send in Jenkins.

The second &#x2714 should be & #x214 without the space.

I give up.

&#x2714

Can you provide some text for me to reproduce and test with?

1) Create a new Jenkins job that does nothing.
2) Make sure you have 'Editable Email Notification' as a Post-build Action.
3) Put &#x2714 into the Default Content box.
4) Make sure you have a valid email address in Project Recipient List.
5) Make sure Content Type is set to HTML (text/html).
6) Hit build.

Does your output actually output the entity like that, or is it the original symbol?

The previous plugin output a tick (symbol). 2.40 just outputs &#x2714 as text because the ampersand now converts & to the html ampersand token.

According to http://www.danshort.com/HTMLentities/?w=dingb,

✔

is a "heavy checkmark." When I put that into the content field and set the content type to HTML, I get the "heavy checkmark" in my email.

I'm not seeing it at all in 2.40 that was auto updated from within Jenkins Plugin manager. :/

Are you missing the semicolon at the end of the entity?

Yes, yes I am, I guess the last version let it through, but browsers and email clients happily display without the semicolon as well, so I guess this isn't a bug. Sorry.