Encoding - can't read mails in Russian (cyrillic) - tried everything

Question

Level 1

1 points

Encoding - can't read mails in Russian (cyrillic) - tried everything

i have the following problem:

i cannot read mails i get in russian (cyrillic) - i have already tried adding russian in preferences > language etc. (like it is descibed here: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20040906175135489 ), but this does not help. i can now choose from 3 different cyrillic encodings in mail (KOI 8R, Windows, ISO 8859-5), but none of them work. all i can see is question marks ...

is there something i missed here and still could do??

thanx a lot for your help!

p.s. i am using mail 2.1

2.1 GHz iMac G5 1.5 GB DDR2 SDRAM Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on Apr 9, 2007 7:20 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,246 points

Apr 9, 2007 7:30 AM in response to kaktus

i can now choose
from 3 different cyrillic encodings in mail (KOI 8R,
Windows, ISO 8859-5), but none of them work. all i
can see is question marks ...

Have you tried UTF-8?

It is also possible that the encoding on the mail is completely botched and not readable. Can you do to View > Message > Long Header and tell us what it says next to Content-Type?

Reply

Answer 2

kaktus Author

Level 1

1 points

Apr 9, 2007 7:34 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Hi Tom,

yes, I have tried UTF-8, it does not work, still have the question marks ...

next to content-type it says:

multipart/mixed; boundary="OUTLOOK2MAC8473928"

what does this tell you?

cheers

2.1 GHz iMac G5 1.5 GB DDR2 SDRAM Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Reply

Answer 3

kaktus Author

Level 1

1 points

Apr 9, 2007 7:38 AM in response to kaktus

i forgot to write that the problem is the same with all the messages i have that are in russian. i have the mails on my pc laptop, too, and there is no problem viewing them in outlook!

Reply

Answer 4

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,246 points

Apr 9, 2007 7:38 AM in response to kaktus

multipart/mixed; boundary="OUTLOOK2MAC8473928"

what does this tell you?

It says the mail is probably html or some other format. Go to View > Message > Raw Source and see what it says after any "charset=" statements you can find. Also you can copy/paste the entire raw source into an email to me and I'll see if I can figure it out (tom at bluesky dot org).

Reply

Answer 5

kaktus Author

Level 1

1 points

Apr 9, 2007 7:44 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

tom, i sent you the entire raw source to your email address. thanks a lot for your help!!

by the way, i couldn't find any 'charset=' statements...

Reply

Answer 6

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,246 points

Apr 9, 2007 8:00 AM in response to kaktus

Thanks for the raw source. If your raw source is also all question marks, then I think the email was transformed into total garbage at the sending end. I don't think anyone anywhere would be able to read it. You need to contact the sender for another version, perhaps ask specifically for Plain Text.

Are you sure it is in Russian? All the web pages referenced in the message are in German.

Reply

Answer 7

kaktus Author

Level 1

1 points

Apr 9, 2007 8:12 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

tom,

like i wrote in my last post, i have the very same email in my outlook at my pc where i can read it without any problems .... so yes, i am sure it is in russian and the source is fine.

and like i wrote, all my other emails that are supposed to be in russian are in 'question marks', too ...

any help anyone??

Reply

Answer 8

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,246 points

Apr 9, 2007 8:23 AM in response to kaktus

like i wrote in my last post, i have the very same
email in my outlook at my pc where i can read it
without any problems .... so yes, i am sure it is in
russian and the source is fine.

Sorry, I did not see that message earlier. Could you possibly forward to me a copy of the problem message from your PC?

Do you get your email off of an MS Exchange server?

Reply

Answer 9

kaktus Author

Level 1

1 points

Apr 9, 2007 8:29 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

what 'problem message' ? on the pc (outlook) everything is fine ...

the thing is, i moved all my mail from outlook to apple mail today (via O2M), everything worked fine, but i cannot read the mails that are in russian...

Reply

Answer 10

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,246 points

Apr 9, 2007 8:41 AM in response to kaktus

what 'problem message' ? on the pc (outlook)
everything is fine ...

I meant the message which is a problem on the Mac.

the thing is, i moved all my mail from outlook to
apple mail today (via O2M), everything worked fine,
but i cannot read the mails that are in russian...

Do you have problems with the Russian emails you receive directly in Apple Mail, or only with the ones you moved via O2M? O2M has this on their web page: "While many non-English characters are successfully converted with O2M, Little Machines does not guarantee the successful conversion of languages other than English."

Reply

Answer 11

kaktus Author

Level 1

1 points

Apr 9, 2007 8:49 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

that's a good point! that would have been my next step. i'll write after i've tried.

Reply

Answer 12

kaktus Author

Level 1

1 points

Apr 9, 2007 9:07 AM in response to kaktus

alright, it's solved. tom was right - it seems that O2M wasn't able to convert the russian mails. i resent them via outlook to the mac and everything worked fine!

but still, i would be interested if there was any way to convert those strange files O2M gave me to normal russian letters ... any ideas?

p.s. tom, you'll get the solved points!

Reply

Answer 13

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,246 points

Apr 9, 2007 9:38 AM in response to kaktus

but still, i would be interested if there was any way
to convert those strange files O2M gave me to normal
russian letters ... any ideas?

I don't think so. The cyrillic has been totally destroyed and there is no way to extract it. The O2M program probably looked at the cyrillic, didn't know what to do with it, and converted all of it to actual question mark characters. It's not just Mail displaying question marks because it can't read the characters -- the characters are question marks.

Reply