Attachment size reported as double the real size

[Mark Feodoroff]

Hi All,

We're running Outlook 2007 with Exchange 2003 backend. One particular user
has reported email attachments doubling in size. By this I mean that the
size reported in the 'Size' column in the Inbox is double that of the
attachments in the actual email. It doesn't effect all attachments, only
ones from outside our network.

I know about encoding and the overhead that adds, but nothing like this.
I'm seeing DOC, JPG, PDF, WMV files in the 2-5MB range doubling. Some
messages have mulitple attachments and it happens to the whole message, not
just certain file types.

Now for the weirdness:

* It doesn't happen for all users.
* It happens more to some users than others (has never happened to anyone in
IT for example)
* Exchange Tracking Centre reports the true size of the email, as does our
SPAM filter, etc.
* During testing I have asked a message originator to send to a user
exhibiting the issue and myself in the same email - works fine for me.
* Moving a users' mailbox from one store to another results in an effective
compaction of the mailbox and messages then report correct size
* Coping a single message to another mailbox also reports the correct size
in the destination mailbox, but not the source one!
* Internal emails are never a problem

I love to hear from anyone who has been this problem, or those who could
shed some light on what might be going on.

Cheers,
Mark

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

Does every machine and user have the same permissions and settings? Ie, do
both IT and standard users have antivirus scanning email on the client?

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]



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[Mark Feodoroff]

Hi Diane,

Yes, we have AV scanning on MailMarshal server (Internet exposed), another
vendor on the Exchange Server (covers internal only email) and a third
vendor on the desktops. The SOE machines all run the same scanner. Users do
not have admin permissions.

I have disabled scanning on the Exchange server (SMTP and Store level) and
it didn't seem to make any difference.

Cheers,
Mark

Does every machine and user have the same permissions and settings? Ie, do
both IT and standard users have antivirus scanning email on the client?

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]



Outlook Tips by email:
mailto:[email protected]

EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
mailto:[email protected]

Do you keep Outlook open 24/7? Vote in our poll:
http://forums.slipstick.com/showthread.php?t=22205

Hi All,

We're running Outlook 2007 with Exchange 2003 backend. One particular
user has reported email attachments doubling in size. By this I mean
that the size reported in the 'Size' column in the Inbox is double that
of the attachments in the actual email. It doesn't effect all
attachments, only ones from outside our network.

I know about encoding and the overhead that adds, but nothing like this.
I'm seeing DOC, JPG, PDF, WMV files in the 2-5MB range doubling. Some
messages have mulitple attachments and it happens to the whole message,
not just certain file types.

Now for the weirdness:

* It doesn't happen for all users.
* It happens more to some users than others (has never happened to anyone
in IT for example)
* Exchange Tracking Centre reports the true size of the email, as does
our SPAM filter, etc.
* During testing I have asked a message originator to send to a user
exhibiting the issue and myself in the same email - works fine for me.
* Moving a users' mailbox from one store to another results in an
effective compaction of the mailbox and messages then report correct size
* Coping a single message to another mailbox also reports the correct
size in the destination mailbox, but not the source one!
* Internal emails are never a problem

I love to hear from anyone who has been this problem, or those who could
shed some light on what might be going on.

Cheers,
Mark

 

[deejay_platinum]

I can't really interject much here but I've had a user mention to me
that one of his recipients complained to him about this very issue.
I was looking into the problem when I came across this post.

The senders email client is Outlook 2007 but using Postfix to send
mails.
The recipient is on a network running Microsoft Exchange V6.5 which I
believe is the same as Exchange 2003.
I'm not 100% sure what version of Outlook the recipient is using but I
do know it's a version prior to Outlook 2007.