Zip file attachments renamed to Mail Attachment since upgrading to SL

I had not thought about that, but doesn't the Mac OS take care of zip files?

Once I save the file named Mail Attachment and give it a .zip extension, all is well. I can unzip the file. The issue seems to be that Apple Mail is stripping off the extension and renaming the file to Mail Attachment.

I would agree except that all messages have been affected, not just current ones. Something must have changed when I upgraded to Snow Leopard to cause Mail to lose its ability to recognize a .zip file. These are PC zip files which contain a Microsoft Access database. I get them monthly and until now, it has not been a problem.

1. I regularly get an email with a zip file attachment that contains a Microsoft Access database file. The attachment is named xxx1234.zip.
2. Prior to upgrading to SL, I had several of these emails with attachments in the above format.
3. I have a Macbook that has NOT been upgraded to SL that has most of the same emails and the attachments are as they should be.
4. Back to my SL iMac, all emails that had .zip file attachments prior to and after upgrading to SL have had these attachments renamed to Mail Attachment.
5. If I save the attachment and then rename Mail Attachment to xxx1234.zip, I can recover the data.
6. I do not know if other types of attachments are affected, but a quick check does not show any problems.
7. I am not home now, so I cannot try doing a control-click, but if I double click the renamed saved attachment, it extracts the database file and the file is usable once I transfer it to a PC.

Hope this clarifies and thanks for your efforts.

Bob

Ernie Stamper wrote:

If the MacBook that is not using SL and this Mac are both on and receiving the message, then will the message on the MacBook remain named correctly, but with the Mac using Mail 4.1, it is not? (I think this is what you are reporting, but just making sure.)

Yes

Is there any SPAM or Anti-virus software on this computer?

No

Using each computer, open such a message, click on View in the menubar, place the cursor on Message in the resulting pull-down and choose Raw Source. Observe the attachment header for this file on each computer, and report.

Will check this when I get home tonight.

Ernie

One more thing that I found interesting. I used Time Machine to look at older emails that had been backed up and all their attachments (the .zip ones) have been renamed to Mail Attachment as well.

On the iMac (SL) begin 666 qrp083109.zip
On the Macbook (Non-SL) begin 666 qrp083109.zip

Bob

In the header section of the email and also at the bottom of the email. If I double click the attachment, I get an error message saying "The document "Mail Attachment" could not be opened. The file isn't in the correct format. The file might be corrupted, truncated, or in an unexpected format."

It is as though Apple Mail does recognize what type of document the attachment is and so it uses the default "Mail Attachment" name. The OS on the other hand can handle the document once it is properly named. There appears to be some sort of filtering going on within mail. I have looked all over for settings that might affect it. I am home today, so maybe I will give Apple a call and see what they might know. My fear is that the only solution would be to do a clean installation of the OS.

Bob

I could not figure out how to imbed a screen shot into this reply.