I have a problem opening some email attachments. They will not open in the mail application on an IPad Air

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Level 1

2 points

I have a problem opening some email attachments. They will not open in the mail application on an IPad Air

I recently upgraded from an iPad 1 to an Air. One of its main uses is to avoid printing volumes of papers for meetings, so the abilty to open attachments with mail is pretty important.

There are some attachments that will not open in the mail application on an iPad Air. Some in the same format do (docx). They do open in Mail on my MacBook, and iPad1, or if I go to webmail on any device including a Blackberry, so it is not a file corruption problem. The problem persists on different networks. Other emails from the same sender do work. It seems to be specifically related to IOS 7 or the Mail app. Quickview won't work, nor will opening with a range of Apps which report a file error.

There was an historical problem with Apple garbling pdf files, but this is a new one on me.

All this is a shame because it is opening emails in attachments that was one of my main reasons for buying an Air.

Does anyone know of the cause? A solution?

iPad Air Wi-Fi, iOS 7.1.1, Mail

Posted on Apr 29, 2014 1:17 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

rccharles

Level 6

12,957 points

Apr 29, 2014 11:10 AM in response to Julian167

What about a work-around?

Ios 7.1 etc. has a problem with communicating with exchange. There are lots of reports of problems with pdf files.

The work-arounds mentioned here may be of assistnace.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5992793?start=0&tstart=0

get a gmail account.

There are lots of ways of moving files.

A simple and popular way to copy files and share files among your devices.

https://www.dropbox.com/

"Box lets you store all of your content online, so you can access, manage and share it from anywhere. Integrate Box with Google Apps and Salesforce and access Box on mobile devices" Rated the most secure cloud storage by SkyHigh Networks.

https://www.box.com/

Files Connect -- "Cloud Storage services like Dropbox, MobileMe iDisk, Google Docs/Picasa, Facebook photos, FTP, SFTP, WebDAV ... AFS (Apple File Shares) SMB (Windows shares) protocols"

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/files-connect/id404324302?mt=8

Windows File server

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/filebrowser-access-files-on/id364738545?mt=8

"Dukto is a simple application that allows you to share files between devices connected to the same (wireless) LAN network."

http://www.tidal.it/?page_id=309&lang=en

http://www.msec.it/blog/?page_id=11

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Answer 2

May 2, 2014 8:10 AM in response to Julian167

I've had the same problem with my iPhone 5 running iOS 7.1.1. Just this morning, I received an email with a JPEG attachment. Before upgrading to iOS 7.1.1, normally this attachment would immediately download and I would be looking at the photo. Now, the beach ball of doom simply rotates and never opens. It opens fine on my MacBook Pro. This really seems to be an iOS issue that's been created by the update. We shouldn't have to use "work-around" to open JPEG attachments in Mail. My wife's ancient iPhone 4 running 6.1.3 had no problem downloading the same file. This really appears to be a problem Apple should fix ASAP.

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Answer 3

rccharles

Level 6

12,957 points

May 2, 2014 10:10 AM in response to CJBerkely

Ways to contact Apple.

http://www.apple.com/contact/

Here is the place for suggestions:

*Feedback*

"Use the form below to send us your comments. We read all feedback carefully, but please note that we cannot respond to the comments you submit."

http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html

We can complain about Apple's business decisions, but these discussions are user to user talk about possible solutions.

Here are the places to report bugs:

Get an account at

http://developer.apple.com/ then submit a bug report to http://bugreporter.apple.com/

Developers:

"Submitting Bugs and Feedback

Your feedback goes a long way towards making our products even better. With Apple Bug Reporter, you can submit bug reports or request enhancements to APIs and developer tools."

https://developer.apple.com/bug-reporting/

Enterprise support:

Call enterprise support (866) 752-7753 to create a case ID number

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Answer 4

May 6, 2014 7:44 AM in response to Julian167

Ditto. We are having the same problem with jpeg file attachments. Sending from an IMac through Apple Mail to an iPad receiving through Apple Mail. The iPad sees a mime with no content. Reseting the iPad does nothing. Additionally, reading the same message on the iMac shows the jpeg file fine.

Message was edited by: verafromco

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Answer 5

Lee1944

Level 1

33 points

Sep 1, 2014 1:20 PM in response to Julian167

I have a similar issue - certain MIME - .jpg won't open on my Macbook Air but will on my iPhone and vice-versa. Very confusing

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Answer 6

Sep 1, 2014 2:59 PM in response to Lee1944

Lee1944 wrote:

I have a similar issue - certain MIME - .jpg won't open on my Macbook Air but will on my iPhone and vice-versa. Very confusing

You posted in the iPad forum. To get answers to your question, post in the proper forum. See https://discussions.apple.com/welcome

 Cheers, Tom 😉

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Answer 7

Oct 2, 2014 6:25 PM in response to Julian167

Not sure if I read it in this thread or somewhere else, but it may be helpful to go all the way to the very bottom of the email and make sure that "message has not been downloaded" alert is not present. Downloading the rest of the message just worked for me for several of the attachments I was having problems with. this was not entirely intuitive as both the message and the attachment. (On the surface) appear to be fully downloaded. It was only by going to the very very end of the message that the need for additional downloading became apparent. Would be nice if this trivial fix will help everyone's problems, but I'm not completely optimistic.

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