“ This message cannot be displayed”

How easy would it be for Apple ,who are hopefully/ presumably monitoring this site , just to say “guys don’t worry about this , we know about it and will fix with next upgrade”. ?

common sense customer relations you would think !!

I spent a thankless half an hour in an online chat with Apple support. The Apple guy first had to look it up to see whether this was, I guess, on their radar as a problem and maybe already being worked on. After many minutes of back and forth, he finally admitted that there seem to be a lot of complaints in the community threads, and said he would advise Apple there’s a problem. As big an Apple fan as I am, I’m sorry to say this isn’t the first time I’ve had a well-known technical problem that Apple has been very slow or evasive about admitting anything’s wrong while they’re (presumably) trying to fix it. Frustrating. So far, fortunately, my iPhone has not been afflicted by this, and my laptop Mail is normal. Hey Apple — transparency is the best policy!

This worked for me

Here is an iPhone Email Tip that will hopefully save you some frustration:

When reading your email with your iPhone, have you ever got the following message?

"This message cannot be displayed because of the way it is formatted. Ask the sender to send it again using a different format or email program. Multipart/Alternative"

If this happens to you, you can work around the problem by first deleting your message. Then go find the message in your trash and move the message back to your in-box. You should now be able to read the message properly.

Apparently this was an issue with iOS 3. It was fixed in iOS 4. Unfortunately the bug seems to be back again in iOS 5.

Delete then move back to Inbox just worked to display an affected message here in iOS 14.2. This issue affects some reply messages that I receive via BCC to myself (POP). Oddly, the message preview displays just fine; it’s only opening the message that displays the error. Thanks to the original suggestor for the workaround. Would love a bugfix.

Just activated my new iPhone and sent an email to myself to verify working and all I received was this ”This message cannot be displayed because of the way it is formatted. Ask the sender to send it again using a different format or email program" the contents of my message was not there.

Clearly there is a problem and a poor user experience for sure. Given all the posts regarding this my phone appears to be working properly and reacting to an iOS defect as there is no formatting issue other than how my phone itself formatted it.

Might be worth trying again? It did work for us on three iPhones (2 x iPhone 7 and a 6s) and an oldish iPad mini but not always first time.

Apple should provide a proper fix, this is at best a workaround. It is indeed annoying.

Here is the original post that I found on Google, by chance, maybe they can help?

iPhone Tip – Message cannot be displayed because of the way it is formatted | Mike's Draft Article Bin (michaelmilette.com)

Apparently you can chat online to Apple Support - I got as far as where you click to chat but don’t have the t8me to do it. Does anyone have the time to do this and show them this thread and ask for a solution?

Yes, this annoying problem occurs randomly. I always bcc myself when I send emails via my iPad. My emails always display perfectly to the person I send them to. But when I receive the bcc, sometimes it displays perfectly, but at other times it just says : “This message cannot be displayed because of the way it is formatted. Ask the sender to send it again using a different format or email program.text/plain”.

It’s a random error.

It is NOT related to my email server.

I paid for a computer technician to check it out.

He spent an hour working on it, only to tell me there was no problem with my email server or my email program; but rather, it was an Apple issue and I would need to complain to Apple about it.

Apple staff admitted they’d received numerous complaints about this issue, but had not yet found a cause nor worked out how to fix it.

BUT HERE IS A THREE STEP WORK-AROUND:

When you get the copy of your email with this annoying message:

“This message cannot be displayed because of the way it is formatted. Ask the sender to send it again using a different format or email program.text/plain”

1) Just delete the message, then

2) Go to your Delete box (BIN) and move the message back to your IN BOX.

3) Then go to your IN BOX and look at the message again. You’ll find it has magically reappeared with your original message intact.

Cheers,

Harvey.

I create an email message and get the dreaded

“This message cannot be displayed because of the way it is formatted. Ask the sender to send it again using a different format or email program.”

iPhone 7, iOS 14.2.

This is still not fixed as of 11 Dec 2020.

There is a simple 3-step work-around for this problem until Apple fixes it.

1) Delete the message.

2) Go to your Delete (Bin) box and locate the deleted message.

3) Move the deleted message back to your In Box. You will find the text magically restored.

Yes, me 2! I have been calling about this problem ever since iOS 14 came out. Thought it would be fixed in iOS 14 1 or 14.2, but is was not. They claim to NEVER have heard of this issue!! Not believing that! Happens randomly as someone said . Very annoying to put in Trash and move back which sometimes works and sometimes not. Sometimes I do it over and over. This is in my end only both in Sent mail and my blind copies. However recipient seems to get the email just fine. APPLE, PLEASE FIX THIS PROBLEM!! Happens on ALL IOS MAIL DEVICES.. iPhone , iPad!!!!!! Stop SAYING IT DOESN'T EXIST!!!!

Using Verizon emaiI, I have the same issue. When I bcc myself, I receive the email, and the text is visible in the list of emails, but when I open the email - both in the sent folder and in the inbox - I get this error message:

“This message cannot be displayed because of the way it is formatted. Ask the sender to send it again using a different format or email program.”

Thankfully, the other recipients get the correct email, so the issue is only on my sending phone. What works for me is deleting the copy of the email from the “sent email” folder. Magically, the copy of the email in my inbox is restored to its proper condition.

StuyV, deleting the sent email also works for me. I am wondering if the problem is that there is limited space in the sent folder, so that as you remove sent messages, more space is created and the issue goes away. IOS 13 had this problem, but it was with the inbox... if you had too many messages in your inbox, the oldest messages disappeared. With IOS 14, that problem disappeared, but now we have an issue with the sent folder. I have a brand new ipad air 4 and I didnt have this issue for several days until emails started to build up in my sent folder and now I have this problem all the time. I am also wondering if the amount of emails in other folders will affect this as well, which is why it seems the issue happens randomly, i.e. clean out some emails in the inbox, more space created, problem goes away until more emails build up. But thanks for the suggestion to delete the sent email. That works!

Thanks for sharing this work around - it has worked for me. I wonder if there is a way to fasttrack deleting all emails then reinstating? This is definitely an Apple problem that is only occuring on my Apple iPhone - as I’ve checked my webmail and my non Apple laptop and there are no issues there.

This is ridiculous already!!!! With ALL THE TECH out there, APPLE STILL CANT FIX THIS ANNOYING PROBLEM???? We should not have to send the email to trash and then bring it back to see it!!!!!!!!! What a MICKEY MOUSE WORK AROUND!!!!!!!! Since ios 14, this has been a RANDOM EVENT on every IOS DEVICE running APPLE MAIL!!!!!!!! REALLY APPLE???????????? Why cant you FIX THIS ANNOYING PROBLEM ???? You have all this spectacular tech, and yet why you cant fix this problem is beyond me?????? Have you even tried???? When you call, you are just advised that noone else has reported this problem. That is total BS and you know it. It even happened in 2012. Then somehow went away. I never had it happen till IOS 14. So, just what is it that makes this issue happen and WHY CANT IT BE ELIMINATED???? WHY CANT YOU GET RID OF THIS?????? It has been happening long enough and noone wants to hear about your mickey mouse work around!!!!!!!!! We want it FIXED!!!!!!!! IS there an APPLE ADVISOR out there who can SHED SOME LIGHT ON WHY THIS IS NOT FIXED AFTER MONTHS OF COMPLAINTS???