Corrupt Attachment in Apple Mail (using IMAP)(on Mountain Lion too)

This is a problem to me for a long time... I tried to search on the internet, and the strange thing is on the same Mac, same internet condition, same person using the Mac... Why I can get full mail attachment every single time by using Sparrow or Thunderbird, but has a 70% up chances to get corrupted attachment on Apple Mail?

This just don't make sense to me... Some people said it is Gmail's issue, but it definitely not a Gmail issue.

By the way, the corrupt situation began since I upgrade to OS 10.7. I did not have any issue with it on 10.5 or 10.6 years ago.

Not all the time... but some days can up to 70%. The size... It also has the same situation even when some files are less than 2 mb. I tried to make a screen shot of the situation... please forgive me I didn't take the full screen.

In the photo below, when I tried to open the file it said There was an error opening this document... This is the file I received today via Apple Mail (on my MBA with Mountain Lion).

Well no particular file, any file can be corrupted in my experience. I've seen corrupted JPG files, PDF files, MS word files, excel files, and even .zip files.

It doesn't matter who send the email, it could happen on any email in my mail box. When I use other application like Thunderbird or Sparrow doesn't cause such issue.

Believe me I know what I'm doing, with the latest Mountain Lion, Latest Adobe Reader I can get from official website and it does not matter which version I'm having. No antivirus program involved, even if there is antivirus program involved, why I don't get trouble in other mail apps?

The problem is, the attachment files in the email was not correctly downloaded. It doesn't matter which program I use to view it. If I save the attached files onto my desktop, situation remain the same. The only possible way I can do is to rebuild the entire mail database. However, the rebuilding process could be hours for I have tons of emails saved on the server, and it does not guarantee will solve the problem. Why bother spending so much time only simply want to get a file? The point is, by using Thunderbird I can get the file instantly, with Mail I can't?

The following is part of the corrupted file's MIME header. I'm not sure if this is enough for I didn't copy the entire header for it contains some sender information. I would probably not sharing those email addresses.

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="=_997f4b2baebbe275a574812f1ca64cdf"

--=_997f4b2baebbe275a574812f1ca64cdf

Content-Type: multipart/ALTERNATIVE;

boundary="=_44f440161c4f3bd3273d9805e6f1454b"

--=_997f4b2baebbe275a574812f1ca64cdf

Content-Disposition: attachment;

filename*0="=?UTF-8?Q?GMOs=20=E0=B9=80=E0=B8=A1=E0=B8=A5=E0=B9=87=E0=B8=94 =E";

filename*1="0=B8=9E=E0=B8=B1=E0=B8=99=E0=B8=98=E0=B9=8C=E0=B8=82=E0=B9=89= E0";

filename*2="=B8=B2=E0=B8=A7=E0=B9=82=E0=B8=9E=E0=B8=94=E0=B8=AB=E0=B8=A7=E 0=";

filename*3="B8=B2=E0=B8=9927072555_0000.pdf?="

Content-Type: APPLICATION/PDF;

name*0="=?UTF-8?Q?GMOs=20=E0=B9=80=E0=B8=A1=E0=B8=A5=E0=B9=87=E0=B8=94=E";

name*1="0=B8=9E=E0=B8=B1=E0=B8=99=E0=B8=98=E0=B9=8C=E0=B8=82=E0=B9=89=E0";

name*2="=B8=B2=E0=B8=A7=E0=B9=82=E0=B8=9E=E0=B8=94=E0=B8=AB=E0=B8=A7=E0=";

name*3="B8=B2=E0=B8=9927072555_0000.pdf?="

Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

Thanks for your suggestion.

No plugin installed at all. Pure installation got the same issue.

I have to say that my internet condition might not be pefect, but I think that should not be a problem. I can successfully download and install Mountain Lion's 4G files from internet, but I can't get the correct 1mb attached file from Mail? BTW, I'm currently in Thailand. The environment is not satisfying, but should be barely ok to do anything I want except Apple Mail.

To Austin, yes, I am forced to use Sparrow and Thunderbird since when I use them I totally have no problem reading ANY of the attachments. However, by doing that also means I have to give up all those useful features of Apple Mail.

For your other suggestions, I will try and let you know if those will work.

Thank you Austin,

I tried to answer every question here... As I mentioned several times, I can use Thunderbird and Sparrow to receive emails with "complete" email attachment files. Of course, I'm using IMAP all the time.

That is why I said it is obviously an Apple Mail issue.

If my words make anyone feel offensive, I apologize. However, I think people should really read the articles or so useful suggestions here. Moreover, I was hoping any Apple staff or developter would more or less know this issue and try to solve it. I believe I'm not the only one has such problem.

I tried to create a new user account, login with the new user account, setup the IMAP email account in Apple Mail, unfortunately the situation remain the same. Nothing changed. Still, with this new user account, I tried both on sparrow and on Apple Mail. Sparrow did what I expect to read every single attachment normally. However, Apple Mail corrupts quite often.

I asked some of my friends who write programs for living, and they had no idea how to solve this issue either. Perhaps when Apple Mail download the attachments there are some protocol that are different from others? Like do they compress the data first or something? In my case, I found that the files which are corrupted from Apple Mail are smaller than the completed files downloaded by Thunderbird or Sparrow (Thunderbird and Sparrow I got the exactly same file everytime).

I don't know how to show you what happened on both my Macbook Pro (2010) and Macbook Air (2011) without showing too much private information (names, emails, and so on). Again, I'm seeking for help on this issue. Meanwhile, I apologize again if someone feel uncomfortable. I felt so frustrated...

P.S. I used Mac since about 7~8 years ago, and I think I'm not a newbe to Apple products. I personally got MBA degrees in IT management, therefore the basic operation on the OS, or how the network routing, internet environment, email protocols are quite familiar to me. Hope you understand that I feel kind of bothered everytime when someone else kept saying things like "you should check your routing, are you sure you are using IMAP correctly, blablabla...".

Maybe I should try to compare the differences for you guys.

If you want please see the photos I put in my dropbox folder:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qp9krv42ri565bd/e7gO28uza7

Hopefully this might help if someone can figure out what happened.

Thank you Austin!

I did your instruction, and found the following from colsole which occurred when I open the corrupted attach files:

The jpg image file:

7/30/12 7:32:56.586 AM WindowServer[125]: CGXDisableUpdate: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "Mail" for over 1.00 seconds. Server has re-enabled them.

7/30/12 7:32:56.716 AM WindowServer[125]: reenable_update_for_connection: UI updates were finally reenabled by application "Mail" after 1.13 seconds (server forcibly re-enabled them after 1.00 seconds)

7/30/12 7:33:11.849 AM Mail[36034]: ImageIO: JPEG Corrupt JPEG data: premature end of data segment

The pdf file tried to open by preview:

7/30/12 7:39:38.321 AM Preview[36106]: PVPDFPageContainer initWithURL:file://localhost/Users/fredtsai/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/D ata/Library/Mail%20Downloads/Spec%20NTDC-C19072555_0000.pdf failed, error = Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=259 "The file “Spec NTDC-C19072555_0000.pdf” could not be opened." UserInfo=0x7f9663820970 {NSURL=file://localhost/Users/fredtsai/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/L ibrary/Mail%20Downloads/Spec%20NTDC-C19072555_0000.pdf, NSLocalizedDescription=The file “Spec NTDC-C19072555_0000.pdf” could not be opened., NSLocalizedRecoverySuggestion=It may be damaged or use a file format that Preview doesn’t recognize.}

Any suggestion what's next?