Mail: Text Encoding problem, or something else?

Question

Mail: Text Encoding problem, or something else?

I have just had a problem with my password for my BT broadband and e-mail accounts and was sent an e-mail containing a temporary password. This is what that e-mail looked like in Apple Mail (no panic about security: I have changed the password!):

As can be imagined, all these things like and confused me terribly. I tried entering

xmgw4qn5

as my password and it was rejected.

I then opened Safari and looked at BT's e-mail in BT's webmail. It now looked like this

That solved my password problem, so I went back to the version in Mail and, thinking that it was a text encoding problem, tried almost every encoding in the 'Message/Text Encoding' menu, but with no success in converting the e-mail into something more normal-looking.

I should be very grateful for explanations, comments and instructions for dealing with any similarly-garbled e-mail that I may receive in the future.

Mac mini, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Jul 26, 2014 9:10 AM

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Answer 1

Jul 26, 2014 9:37 AM in response to Michael Graubart

I should add to the above that both in SeaMonkey and in Firefox (as well as Safari) the message looks normal in webmail, but, perhaps more significantly, it also looks normal in SeaMonkey's mail-client function. It is only in Apple Mail that it looks as if it is wrongly encoded.

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Answer 2

Jul 26, 2014 10:08 AM in response to Michael Graubart

One more addition:

I found this string elsewhere in these Discussions:

Re: character set

So I went to View>Message>Raw Source, and this is what I found:

X-Apparently-To: michael.graubart@btinternet.com via 46.228.38.50; Sat, 26 Jul 2014 15:07:26 +0000

Return-Path: <kanamodel@bt.com>

Received-SPF: softfail (transitioning domain of bt.com does not designate 65.20.0.12 as permitted sender)

X-YMailISG: QYBv.QUWLDu1e7AYnrqPV8KtSo_cKbjZB.PvICLkUQ6u6U.e

m.OT25wH9X78.lRbTiKq7cjjncHl9EkMsWuBsuzQRurlBGXstZePdz8puqAL

.WZwD_uUmbYTOHJQdkkpi13ZE2D0ZpwthBzHqRMmoT.IEYC9UbZLD7WuZmUs

NNi0C7b0ICKED0meGS8gy4kWlgGYnRqzrWnSgwlRzyu6m0_ziaux9vp1QIGw

Jdszo.OhR_ysIx9Uy5gaV6ZdXN3hj5LoJnqmqsakVzkYr8KFFnjUm50ARWYm

JI60zdi83L4skLDOk.uE4ipsLsfCGUYlBNjxf3qDwIZ1RxJGTm5a2rxliajd

**_xNZhIyDJVDEZtLrCIaV55k0JiPb4TeI4QhUK1LK_f1cjWZMAYVRlkp4tt

06YnnuDdwRKRsZAxakcRFId.p_59SOrHdFpkJl9zDYAw3.7Nj7l9oRgpGVa3

_0H2dP82AT8Zgbdp7t5mDi7565NC2yI85LW.dQEwBsmLKGU7WviJku.0f8yP

v6ROsDSS5A.SW8IwDtRE2I9b6cfBqS8l4O1pDGprTOM2d8AFJiNOS1R8tbvh

LJ_nA8F8iz_tCaqvISlTdvOd.Xs1PGuFy8a4klFiWG3K76.2zT6mJgMKpYXH

TMw8RNbKqD09lDfBeosFfxGv5dEiMC5EaieWkBiQjf8A7_9pwLHd3e0bGLmy

w4A9v1FFIwlyeKt_YzO7qFTclnqsoMkhjeGShXuHHQdmgicWm_ClGcpEdN9j

Bsc4Vuww9LOmZPHz_CM3WhHtjo71q9EIRYqN0XF4bjRDQ8Iud7KaFa54pC3P

sXbILQAeDeCJHIgeU06stwaAEJU8tomaceYF.Mc.pS4JevGioF3kmR4KeXG_

ABAmR03Z4QMvWLo5qrYEc2dA53f4LCr5VVNE6JwUvcMHv0OWGRS7gGQBNMAW

59jbmz3xfe9q9108Xx5qsxPRrD8C1pf2zY9mb0XyOxhtNxWxoMLJ2kmijcMl

wR1BfNWd6crE1qoyiCJ1GNbzpJ7NlT2o4FtcnriSGBR7KD5gAOIuRiXasHG.

u_4ZoWmGu0VxFnSlTwdldnd_jmt2xyOePGfy34Y1o0GiFkQVtkMfq.QyfZOY

UQF7qisCLLN99dKsHSIJdf8veImj5RNSSfsG72qZRInzX5gYi_8mZ0_kdbSt

ftDe9a.8rSARMME0j8wC4kb_rU9KQ5sRlJJGRM2_DKxi0bPpI4R66_yd7uhw

N787NQWTi63BTMFXbowuSPcI7Ux6u.hOxsMFzRdr6i6UZ7Vt81D5A_nMDkR2

EBXGfHh7HQEmLHa65Ibh6OqcJGoIuBmPjXK0SClHaSWKLkdntH4yEJMuraXK

ZltEaAc2zBzqpKy.j7mD8BWTVDLUOIH29_mHUAFAzJu3jw--

X-Originating-IP: [65.20.0.12]

Authentication-Results: mta1027.bt.mail.ir2.yahoo.com from=bt.com; domainkeys=neutral (no sig); from=bt.com; dkim=neutral (no sig)

Received: from 127.0.0.1 (EHLO rgin05.bt.ext.cpcloud.co.uk) (65.20.0.12)

by mta1027.bt.mail.ir2.yahoo.com with SMTP; Sat, 26 Jul 2014 15:07:26 +0000

Received: from hubrelay-rd.bt.com (62.239.224.98) by rgin05.bt.ext.cpcloud.co.uk (8.6.122.06)

id 53D2872501F73DBD for michael.graubart@btinternet.com; Sat, 26 Jul 2014 16:07:26 +0100

Received: from EVMHR72-UKRD.domain1.systemhost.net (10.36.3.110) by

EVMHR65-UKRD.bt.com (10.187.101.20) with Microsoft SMTP Server (TLS) id

14.3.181.6; Sat, 26 Jul 2014 16:07:26 +0100

Received: from EPHR03-UKIP.domain1.systemhost.net (147.149.196.181) by

EVMHR72-UKRD.domain1.systemhost.net (10.36.3.110) with Microsoft SMTP Server

(TLS) id 8.3.348.2; Sat, 26 Jul 2014 16:07:25 +0100

Received: from rds09470app43.nat.bt.com (193.113.234.101) by

EPHR03-UKIP.domain1.systemhost.net (147.149.196.181) with Microsoft SMTP

Server (TLS) id 14.3.181.6; Sat, 26 Jul 2014 16:07:25 +0100

Received: from rds09470app43 (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by

rds09470app43.nat.bt.com (8.13.8+Sun/8.13.8) with ESMTP id s6QF7OGC021846 for

<michael.graubart@btinternet.com>; Sat, 26 Jul 2014 16:07:24 +0100 (BST)

Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 16:07:24 +0100

From: <kanamodel@bt.com>

Reply-To: <kanamodel@bt.com>

To: <michael.graubart@btinternet.com>

Message-ID: <759515311.29.1406387244556.JavaMail.roschp1b@127.0.0.1>

Subject: Your temporary BT.com password details

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: multipart/alternative;

boundary="----=_Part_28_108013518.1406387244524"

X-KanaMessageType: FormMessage

X-Priority: 3

Content-Length: 9221

------=_Part_28_108013518.1406387244524

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Does this indicate a problem at the sender's end? But why does the e-mail look normal in webmail and in a different mail client than Apple Mail? Does this not indicate a problem in Apple Mail?

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Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,652 points

Jul 26, 2014 1:48 PM in response to Michael Graubart

The odd things you are seeing are just html codes. b, for example, tells the display engine to make the text Bold.

The content/type header should be text/html instead of text/plain, so it looks like a sender glitch. Webmail probably assumes everything is html or otherwise detects the codes automatically.

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Answer 4

Jul 26, 2014 2:03 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

That's a relief, Tom Gewecke. But it doesn't quite explain why Safari shows all those html codes, whereas SeaMonkey's mail client (combined browser and mail client out of the same Mozilla stable as Firefox) does not. Any thoughts about that?

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Answer 5

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,652 points

Jul 26, 2014 2:30 PM in response to Michael Graubart

Michael Graubart wrote:

But it doesn't quite explain why Safari shows all those html codes, whereas SeaMonkey's mail client (combined browser and mail client out of the same Mozilla stable as Firefox) does not. Any thoughts about that?

I guess that Safari is following the instructions of the text/plain header, while the others for some reason behave as if it read text/html.

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Answer 6

Jul 26, 2014 3:12 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Thanks again, Tom Gewecke. At least I now know that if I receive an e-mail looking like the one I received from BT, I should try opening it in webmail or in SeaMonkey and not spend a lot of time trying different text encodings in Safari.

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