[mdlug] Email Woes - Attachments with Outlook wonky, Same email in T-bird? No problem

[Aaron Kulkis]

Robert Adkins II wrote:
> Maybe someone here has seen this.
>  
> Some emails with attachments sent to the boss' PC, running Windows 7 64-bit
> and Outlook 2003, appear to have something weird going on with the MIMEType
> and instead of displaying the message and then the attachement, the entire
> email is displayed exactly as one would see if it they looked at the raw
> file that represents the email in Vi on the IMAP store. Header information,
> MIMEType information, the message body and then the "gibberish" characters
> that is the attachment.
>  
> Open up the same exact email on the same computer with Thunderbird and the
> email looks exactly as it should look in Outlook.
>  
> Forward that "badly formed" email via Outlook and it ends up looking the
> same on a different seat of Outlook AND Thunderbird. At this time, it only
> appears to happen with some emails that have attachments from a three
> different sources. The vexing thing, is that sometimes these same sources
> will send email wtih attachments and they work normally.

If I understand you correctly, when Outlook doesn't display an
e-mail, then when Outlook forwards that same message, all of the
recipients using either Outlook or Thunderbird see the same thing
that the original recipient saw (raw mime/html/etc rather than
the intended display).

What you're describing is a data marshalling bug in the original
recipient, resulting in some key MIME component getting dropped,
which, not surprisingly, is therefore not part of the message
when it is forwarded to yet another recipient, thereby causing
all recipients (regardless of reader software) to see raw MIME/html/etc.

>  
> What I have been seeing is something to do with settings on the sending
> Exchange Server, but two of these sources appear to be using something other
> than Outlook/Exchange or are using  Exchange with different email clients.
> One client uses Lotus Notes, but I'm unsure what their server is.

Sounds like Outlook is mishandling some edge condition which Thunderbird
tolerates better.

>  
> Any ideas? Is there any rules that can be tossed at incoming email with
> attachments to "rewrite" them into following a fully standards compliant
> format for the rare times when an email comes in with a borked MIMEtype?
>  

Can't help you there, I'm ignorant of MIME protocol, other than the
fact that it exists.

> Thanks,
> Rob