Problems with attachments being sent as code and not attachment

[Gerry Martin]

I have Outlook 2003 SP3.
A company sending me attachments of approx 1-2 MB, from a Lotus notes
server, are unable to get them to me as normal attchments. The emails (.jpg
and .Xls and PDF) appear on my pc as 6 MB but with the attchments converted
to a lot of code inserted at the foot of the email (an example of the start
of the code is shown at the end).
They could send all attachments to me, up to the other day. Nothing obvious
has been changed.
They can send pictures that were made in the past that reside on their pc.
But not new files they make.
They can send the pictures to another company, who receives them OK, (I only
get them as inserted code when copied in on this email), and that company can
then forward them to me with no problem.

I have tried turnning off Symantec anti virus with no effect.
Other people running outlook appear to have no problem sending me
attachments only this company running Lotus Notes and only with new files
they have created.
If I send them a file and ask them to return it to me it works fine.
They have zipped these troublesome files - and one person managed to get an
attachment they could not send directly through but another person failed
doing the same thing.
Does anyone know of anything that it might be?
Have any recent updates from Windows caused it?

Any help please?

Code at foot of body email follows:

--0__NBBF967DFD5EF238f9e8a93df938690918c4EBBF967DFD5EF23
Content-type: application/zip;
name=est.zip"
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=est.zip"
Content-transfer-encoding: base64

 

[Brian Tillman]

I have Outlook 2003 SP3.
A company sending me attachments of approx 1-2 MB, from a Lotus notes
server, are unable to get them to me as normal attchments. The emails
(.jpg and .Xls and PDF) appear on my pc as 6 MB but with the
attchments converted to a lot of code inserted at the foot of the
email (an example of the start of the code is shown at the end).

Is this on Vista? Was the mesage received via Bcc?

 

[ricky]

Same problem. It's Vista and came from Bcc. Any fix?
Thx

 

[Brian Tillman]

Same problem. It's Vista and came from Bcc. Any fix?

Not yet. Microsoft is looking into it.

 

[Gerry Martin]

No Brian- It is XP Svc Pack 2. It happens when I am in the "To" box and when
I am in the "CC" box. Not tried it in the "Bcc".
Any help?

 

[Brian Tillman]

No Brian- It is XP Svc Pack 2. It happens when I am in the "To" box
and when I am in the "CC" box. Not tried it in the "Bcc".
Any help?

It would appear, then, that the message you are receiving may have been
altered in such a way that Outlook cannot detect the message parts and it
may be the mail client on their end. I don't have any good solutions,
because I don't think the problem is with Outlook. Something that might
help is UUDWin from http://www.marks-lab.com/ . This program can decode a
MIME-encoded file for you. I've used it. The 32 bit version runs fine on
Windows XP. If you can save the bodu of the message as a text file, this
program may be able to reconstruct the parts.

 

[Gerry Martin]

Hi Brian- not sure why you think it must be mail client at their end as all
their other customers have no problems (with the identical email) and it gets
through to my web mail fine it is only when downloaded to Outlook 2003 that
the problem occurs. I have proved this to them by making a Google mail
account and it gets through fine on this.
I also found an intersting thread on an ntl / virgin meadia blog site where
other people are now experincing the same problems - their conclusion appears
to be that it is a new (it is for me too) Outlook/windows problem also. There
was some suggestion earlier in the thread that it was a known issue with MS
Exchange and Olook 2003 but that problem appaered to be that the attachment
was there and saveable but not being shown. I cannot see that this is the
same problem as I cannot "save as" as they suggest as the mime code is within
the body of the text. The link to this thread is
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/80/33628442-can-t-receive-hotmail-attachments.html
I am not a pc expert so cannot evaluate what they are saying but I have spent
2 days testing various configurations which leads me to believe it is a
windows or Outlook problem that is bumping into something, but only when a
few variables are lined up. Do you work for Microsoft?
Interestingly, although I have asked this thread to notify me when replies
are posted it has never done so.
Thanks for your help

 

[Brian Tillman]

Hi Brian- not sure why you think it must be mail client at their end
as all their other customers have no problems (with the identical
email) and it gets through to my web mail fine it is only when
downloaded to Outlook 2003 that the problem occurs. I have proved
this to them by making a Google mail account and it gets through fine
on this.

That doesn't prove a thing, as far as I'm concerned. Web browsers are coded
to ignore many HTML coding errors. Mail clients (especially Outlook) are
not.

I also found an intersting thread on an ntl / virgin meadia blog site
where other people are now experincing the same problems - their
conclusion appears to be that it is a new (it is for me too)
Outlook/windows problem also.

Now, if you had said it was an issue on Vista, I'd agree with you, as I
already indicated.

There was some suggestion earlier in
the thread that it was a known issue with MS Exchange and Olook 2003
but that problem appaered to be that the attachment was there and
saveable but not being shown. I cannot see that this is the same
problem as I cannot "save as" as they suggest as the mime code is
within the body of the text. The link to this thread is
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/80/33628442-can-t-receive-hotmail-attachments.html

The posters in that thread are describing a problem with Outlook Express,
not Outlook.

I am not a pc expert so cannot evaluate what they are saying but I
have spent 2 days testing various configurations which leads me to
believe it is a windows or Outlook problem that is bumping into
something, but only when a few variables are lined up. Do you work
for Microsoft?

No one in these newsgroups does (with a couple of rare exceptions).

Interestingly, although I have asked this thread to notify me when
replies are posted it has never done so.

Use a newsreader and not the crufty web interface and you'll have fewer
problems.

 

[Gerry Martin]

Some of those users on the ntl forum are using Outlook 2002 and 2003- from
what i can see.
Guess I am stuck with this one by the looks of things -Thanks for your help
and trying to sort this out for me. Its appreciated.
BTW,the reason I was asking if you worked for Microsoft was because I see
your name as "Brian Tillman Microsoft MVP Outlook" and i dont know what it
means!

 

[Brian Tillman]

BTW,the reason I was asking if you worked for Microsoft was because I
see your name as "Brian Tillman Microsoft MVP Outlook" and i dont
know what it means!

 

[Chris Atteberry]

Could I jump into this thread? I've been looking for a discussion that
closely matches a problem I've been having for about the last 3 weeks...

I think I've got a Vista issue, because I've seen the same problem with
Office 2003, and now with my newly-installed Office 2007. My Outlook program
seems unable to open Outlook attachments. If I select an item from my inbox,
it opens just fine. However, if I drag the outlook item to my desktop,
Outlook won't open it. I noticed the problem initially with email
attachments. If somebody sends me an attached item (the envelope icon), I
can't open it (and it won't open in the preview pane either). All other
attachments open normally. Any ideas?

Thanks,

 

[Brian Tillman]

Could I jump into this thread? I've been looking for a discussion
that closely matches a problem I've been having for about the last 3
weeks...

I think I've got a Vista issue, because I've seen the same problem
with Office 2003, and now with my newly-installed Office 2007. My
Outlook program seems unable to open Outlook attachments. If I
select an item from my inbox, it opens just fine. However, if I drag
the outlook item to my desktop, Outlook won't open it.

Google Desktop Search induces this symptom. Either uninstall it or update
it to the current version.

 

[Chris Atteberry]

Brian, thanks for the solution...that did the trick. I never would have
figured that out on my own!

 

[Don Dinnerville]

Gerry and Brian, I am having the same issue. My email with the attachments
look fine in the webmail interface. On another computer I set up the mail
account in Microsoft Mail, and the attachments came through fine. I would
definitely agree that this seems to be an Outlook 2003 / Vista issue. So, is
there an ETA from Microsoft on a fix so that I don't have to continue to go
into my webmail interface to get emails that I should be able to open from
Outlook?

 

[Brian Tillman]

So, is there an ETA from Microsoft on a
fix so that I don't have to continue to go into my webmail interface
to get emails that I should be able to open from Outlook?

I've not been given one.