* Since your situation,  is one like this: "This is not a bug. - .... ::
*is* description list syntax"--i.e. you are grep-ing for what Emacs
Org-Mode is seeing as a "description list"; and, this is "by design"

e.g.:

* Lord of the Rings
- Elijah Wood :: He plays Frodo
- Sean Astin :: He plays Sam, Frodo's friend.  I still remember
  him very well from his role as Mikey Walsh in The Goonies.

** In such a case: I reiterate my earlier suggestion--and my opinion is one
should always strive to do it this way too--its POSIX compliant--its easier
to read and you won't run into inconsistencies in your code:

Suggest you do it this way instead: Use "POSIX character classes"
like [:blank:] whenever possible--so in this case you could try to do
something like this (you'd have to test it yourself--if you're still
interested--again my environment throws no error exceptions):

** In your shell:
export BLANK="[[:blank:]]"

** Then load your Emacs OrgMode buffer as you did before; and, try
something like this instead:

* [[shell:cat ~/tmp | grep "asdf :"]]
* [[shell:cat ~/tmp | grep "asdf ::"]]
* [[shell:cat ~/tmp | grep "asdf$BLANK::$BLANK]]

--again, this all worked for me--but they all worked for me before too
while yours failed

** Say, anyone no how to do something like this:

export PIPE="|"

* [[shell:cat ~/tmp $PIPE grep "asdf ::"]]

---I mean, does anyone know how to use some other character or whatever
instead of "|" within the "[[...]]"?---I often find myself wanting to
insert a pipe in there and then put the whole thing in an OrgTable
cell--but we all know "|" is the cell divider in OrgMode

** Or does anyone know how to easily change the OrgTable cell barrier to a
key other than "|"?  (then I could freely use the "|" in an OrgTable cell)


On Wed, Feb 24, 2016 at 2:53 PM, Nick Dokos <ndokos@gmail.com> wrote:

> Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr> writes:
>
> >> Count me confused - although the OP is talking about unnumbered lists,
> >> his example only has headlines and numbered lists. Is the link broken
> >> when in the headline or only when it's an unnumbered list item?
> >
> > IIUC, the OP is using unnumbered lists with an asterisk bullet.  Hence,
> > the problem is probably limited to unnumbered lists, not headlines.
> >
>
> Ahhhh (light dawns...)
>
> Thanks!
>
> --
> Nick
>
>
>
>