iPad Email Attachments showing up as empty/missing icon question mark

So this is a very odd bug that is happening on both the iPad and iPhone os, albeit it occurs more on the iPad.

When I sent PDF attachments that shows up on my normal apple mail (as a preview PDF inside the email content), it is showing up as a empty icon in the ipad mail even though iPad mail does note it has an attachment with the paperclip mark.

Keep in mind my email acct is synced over imap on the iPad, iPhone, and apple mail. The pdf attachment opens in apple mail without problems.

This problem also occurs on my iPhone but it is less often.

I hope a described the problem well. If anyone like to see the email for themselves contact me at uunders@gmail.com and i I'll forward you the email with the PDF attachment.

Message was edited by: Apple Issac

Macbook Pro Late 2009 unibody 15", Mac OS X (10.5.7), IPad 32gb wifi only

Posted on May 11, 2010 6:58 PM

90 replies

Oct 11, 2010 7:10 AM in response to Apple Issac

I think this issue should have been resolved by now but it hasn't. It happens not only with attachments but plain old text as well. New emails sometimes will show the Subject with a blank body. Resetting the iPhone works but when you have lots of incoming emails it is a major problem. When will you fix this Apple? It's clearly a software bug.

Oct 31, 2010 5:28 PM in response to BigUpRadio

Hello all. The majority of this post relates to PDF docs. In my scenario it is images, power point presentations, almost any type of attachments. Issue is that it does not do it all the time. Email account has been set up as pop and currently as imap. Provider is yahoo and the account has been set up using the easy set up provided by apple. The majority of emails being sent are jokes and do include embedded images or attachments. All are viewed prior to sending so they would therefore have been downloaded. Have turned on load remote images. I cannot determine what it is. Sometimes it does function properly, other times it does not. Tested with receiver being pc user, Mac user. Has even failed sending it back to myself on the same iPad.

Nov 1, 2010 7:53 AM in response to Apple Issac

It looks like the problem of incomplete attachments received in iPad Mail is still with us. I'm seeing the question mark box whenever someone sends me a jpg attachment. Yet the same message plays out correctly on my iPhone. I'm running 3.2.2. on the iPad. Was this problem ever solved in the past? Most of the posts here are from six months ago. Bob

Nov 4, 2010 10:41 AM in response to Robert McGoff

As of this morning, my problem seems resolved. My iPad is now happily displaying .jpg images. Yet, I have not sync'ed this device since reporting my problem. Could Apple have changed its .me mail server? Or, was I missing something obvious in the way attachments are downloaded? Anyway, if you've experienced this problem, I encourage you to revisit the issue.

A Happy Bob

Nov 16, 2010 11:26 PM in response to Apple Issac

I'm also having this problem with Pdf attachments not showing up. It is fine with .jpg, .gif, image attachments though. I don't have Stanza installed. Hopefully Apple fixes this thing as it is a Major pain for Mail users.

Nov 20, 2010 12:32 AM in response to Matrixprogrammer

Question mark has taken the place of the attachment for me, as of today, on my iPad, when I try to attach a photo to a mobile.me email. This is the second major bug concerning attachments, the other being the elusive "Done" button.

Nov 20, 2010 10:50 AM in response to Robert Arnold5

I have had this occur, as well, but I've isolated it generally to complex PDFs, hi-res PDF's (i.e. 150 ppi), large size PDF's, CMYK PDF's, and PDF's created on old versions of some software. If they can be opened on my iPhone but not my iPad, then I resent to myself via iPhone and then it displays OK on my iPad.

Nov 23, 2010 1:03 PM in response to Apple Issac

What I have noticed is that for example you receive an email with more than 10MB in attachments, let's say .jpg files, the first 10MB of attachments will load and display, regardless the order you tap on them.
After the 10MB limit, only text showing what seems to be a system shortcut to the file shows up.

This problem existed in iOS 3.2.x and still continues in 4.2.1.

It clearly seems to be an iOS bug.

Nov 26, 2010 3:10 PM in response to Apple Issac

I have just updated to 4.2.1 from 3.2 and the problem still exists. Whenever I try to send attachments, be they photos from the photos app, PDFs via forwarding, photos via forwarding, my e-mails show up with nothing attached for the recipients. This is ridiculously stupid since this doesn't happen with my iPhone.

Mar 28, 2011 8:46 PM in response to Apple Issac

Just got the Ipad 2 and have the same problem. I have gmail configured on the iphone 4 and the Ipad 2, with the Iphone 4, I have the 'open in' options available, with the Ipad 2, it opens the pdf and does not let me open it in the program of my choice. Any fix yet? I have the latest ios updates on both devices. (Updated two days ago)

Pepelton

Level 1

4 points

Mar 31, 2011 9:58 AM in response to Apple Issac

I have the same problem with the intermittent question marks showing up in place of a PDF attachment. This problem has been around for many versions of iOS without even an acknowledgment on this forum by Apple Support. What's up with that?!

May 24, 2011 2:49 AM in response to Pepelton

I had a product developer mention that the iPad does not show preview images above a certain dimension, so the press and hold was required.

I'm curious to know if when you press and hold the "box with question mark" you get the "open in..." option?

Jul 11, 2011 2:21 AM in response to ColinWirt

I'm having the same problem using the iPad app "pages" an apple developed app, and I can't seem to send a PDF without getting the blue ? appearing half the time. It seems to be random and most definitely a major bug.

Quite embarrassing for apple really. They tout this new fan dangled, most powerful word processing software developed for a tablet, oh except when you click on the share via email button, it will only work half the time, which obviously looks great for you when your clients keep receiving emails with no attachment.

I'm running 4.3.3 iPad 2

If anyone finds a work around I'd love to hear it. Currently I just send a bunch to my own address, then when one works I forward the attachment via my MacBook. Utterly ******** I know, but I like the PDF layout Pages makes...

Jul 18, 2011 9:53 AM in response to Apple Issac

I found the answer to the pdf ? icon issue!!

I had the same problem, could not view pdfs and larger attachments on the IPAD 1 in email and getting a ? icon (but could see the attachment of the same email on my iphone 3gs).

I discovered if you press and hold the ? icon a pop up says 'quick view', then select 'quick view' up pops the pdf/large file in all its glory!

This was driving me nuts for ages, trawling the internet for answers, I was thinking the ipad was no good as a business tool, hope this helps you folks!

Jan 27, 2012 6:51 PM in response to Apple Issac

Had the same problem on ipad and iphone and out of the blue I thought it might have something to do with how the file is saved as a pdf. When I originally created the pdf file it saved it without the .pdf in the file name, but it was a pdf file. When I created a new pdf file, adding .pdf to the file name, and sent it as attachments, mail recognised and opend it in both ipad and iphone.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

iPad Email Attachments showing up as empty/missing icon question mark