Mail not displaying attachments correctly

Graham,

Welcome to the Discussions. In the info line beneath your post, you list your OSX as 10.4.7, but in your Profile and this post you indicate Panther -- are you still running Panther, or have you upgraded to Tiger?

I would like to be sure of the version of OSX, but do the pasted header info come from one message that behaves this way, or are they samples from different messages?

Ernie

I too am having the same problem. It only just started a few days ago. I access my email accounts through IMAP. If I view the email and it's attachments through webmail everything is fine. It is also fine if I forward it from my webmail to my .mac email address.

Graham,

I have an AOL account, with which to test access with Mail, but I have no ability to test having AOL as the ISP, which may be related. Nevertheless, I can provide my AOL address, if you would want to have your brother send a similar test message. You can first contact me by my email address found by clicking on my name to the left of this post, and I can subsequently provide my AOL address.

Linda,

I also have a test IMAP account, and might be able to analyze, if I can get a sample message. I would need to provide that IMAP address, AFTER first contacting me by the address in my Profile.

Ernie

Ernie -

Well, this gets even stranger... if I access the same IMAP accounts on my 2 home computers the attachments show up correctly. The specs for the 2 are:

1) 1.8 GHz PowerPC G5 (iMac), MAC OS V 10.4.7
2) 2Ghz Intel Core Duo (MacBook), MAC OS V 10.4.7

These are both on a wireless network at home, though I just hooked the laptop up here at work and attachments are ok. Don't know if this helps, but at home we connect via cable modem and at work we use high speed phone.

This is also happening on another system here in the office (1.25GHz Power PC G4 - iMac - v10.4.7).

Another odd thing I've discovered is that if a create a new folder within my IMAP account and copy the email with the garbled attachments to that folder, suddenly the attachment is fine.

The other thing that has happened at about the same time as the attachment problem showed up, is that when I delete emails and empty the trash, they don't delete from the server and reappear.

Thanks for your help in advance...

Linda

Linda,

In Mail Preferences/Accounts/Advanced, what are your selections for keeping copies of messages and attachments for Offline Viewing?

Also, are deleted messages stored in a trash folder on the server, or on your hard drive?

Ernie

Ernie -

Keep copies of messages for offline viewing: all messages and their attachments

Deleted messages are in trash folder on hard drive.

These are the same settings on all computers. (The deleting problem is common to all the computers).

Linda

LInda,

If I am understanding you correctly, the display problem is limited to one or more computers at work, connected via high speed phone (dedicated line, I assume), but not when connecting your laptop at work? If this is correct, then it would seem that your IMAP server can be accessed by Mail 2.1, in good order, but not by some computers, but that is different either because of factors unique to those computers, or to the method of connection.

As to the latter, what is the configuration at the office -- is there an external modem and router, or is the internal modem used? If using external modem, with or without router, are all cables in good condition? Are computers, and connection devices shut down at night, thus rebooting everyday, or are they on constantly?

Are there one, or more computers connected from home to the server, at the same time you are connected at the office?

On any of the Macs, especially those at the office, did the Mail folder and account originate in an earlier version of OSX and Mail (pre-Tiger)? If so, there might could be certain indexing problems, which could also impact the deletion of messages problem, or might only be causing that issue.

More info, please.

Ernie

Erinie -

1) Attachment problem is limited to computers at work. Both connected via a network/router to high speed phone modem. This is how I connected the laptop at work - ethernet cable - and all was fine. One is shut down every night and the other sometimes. Doesn't seem to make a difference.

2) Yes, sometimes the home computers are one with mail open (though usually in sleep mode since I'm at the office), but in the last couple of days, I've made sure to close everything down and only access the IMAP account from one computer. Doesn't seem to make any difference.

3) On both office accounts, Mail did orginate in Panther, the imac at home was also Panther (no problem with this one) and the laptop is new, so Tiger.

Hopefully I've answered everything. Just seems to me that something happened in the lasted update to 10.4.7. I don't remember when I installed it but all these problems are very recent when everything was working fine.

Linda

Linda,

This next line of questions, and suggestion for things to observe, should not be pursued, without some feedback, and perhaps additional info. However, if some files leftover from when Panther and Mail 1.3 was used, are present, then the index file now used in Mail 2.0/2.1 may be corrupted, and if so, it will never impact every Mac, and its Mail exactly the same way.

Since your mailboxes, or at least some of them, originated in Panther, I want you to read the article at the link below, and get back to me with some observations, before attempting any changes -- however, the problem is not usually as severe with xxxx.imapmbox folders, but can still be present:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301315

This issue of leftover files applies not only to mailboxes you have previously created (which are in the Mailboxes folder the article mentioned) but can also apply to those mailboxes in account folders created prior to the upgrade to Tiger, which will be of the form, xxxx.imapmbox.

Also, please report the size of each file or folder. Do not, however, try to list the files that are within the folder named Messages, that is found in each and every mailbox. For any On My Mac mailboxes, it is very important to compare the size of any file named "mbox" with that of the Messages folder. If the mbox is greater in size than the Messages folder, then not all messages have been converted to be in the Messages folder. Also, if any xxxx.mbox folder has more than one folder with Messages in its name, things are not what they should be.

The path to the Mail folder is Home/Library/Mail -- within the Mail folder are one or more account folders and the Mailboxes folder. Even though you are using IMAP, other mailboxes (On My Mac or POP) might still corrupt the Envelope Index that Mail 2.x now uses instead of separate index files in each mailbox.

Ernie

Ernie -

OK. I did a rebuild of the mailbox which corrected the appearance of all the attachments for existing emails in that mailbox, but when I received a new message, the attachment was still not displaying properly (just a bunch of code).

I then deleted the envelop index file and let mail rebuild. This didn't really seem to have any different effect than rebuild mailbox within mail.

Then... I noticed something because I've been having the activity viewer visible since these problems started: mail seemed to be constantly filtering and refiltering email messages for junk and re-caching old attachments that should already be in the cache. So... I turned off junk mail filtering and turned off my junk mail rule and... everything is working fine now. I'm receiving attachments with no problem, everything is fast again. Also, no more problems with deleted messages reappearing or already read emails becoming unread.

From what I can tell, something must have changed in the junk mail filtering on the last upgrade.

I don't know if this makes any sense to you, but it's working so I'm going to stick with it!

Thanks for your help.

Linda

Linda,

Thanks for this followup report. All these issues and conditions might or might not be related. Turning off Junk filter, but later turning it back on, might work, as prior conditions might have corrupted some Junk preferences.

Good luck with continued success.

Ernie