has anyone ever seen this kind of error? portlet is showing HTML. checked all other portlets and nothing

I'm guessing you have cleared cache and tried other browsers?

yeah happening to one user only and he tried that and same error

Remove portlet and re-add?

This happens to us when sorting on a column that's got a bunch of html in it, as it appears yours does. Resetting the portlet (from the same menu with the 'Set up' option) always seems to fix it, though I imagine removing and re-adding would work too.

we tried removing and re adding the portlet where it shows the error, the link seems to be a calendar which might be a broken div from another portlet