Missing (or hidden?) attachments

[willH3]

Ok, here's some background before I get into the problems I'm having.

Running four servers with Win2k
Dedicated email server running Exchange 5.5
Clients using Outlook 2000 SR1 (with Office 97 SR2b)
Client OS ranges from Win98 to WinXP

Basically we have an intermittent problem where emails sent with attachments get through, minus the attachment. It only seems to be happening to external addresses although it has happened once internally (over the 3 months or so that we've suffered).

I've sent an email with an attachment to an external address where the guy has a standard dial-up account (56k modem) and it took him 20 mins or so to collect this one email, which suggests to me that the attachment is still there, just hidden somehow?

Also, on the internal failure, the list in the Inbox showed the little paperclip icon, clearly indicating that the email contained an attachment but when opened it wasn't there.

Please help ... I've tried everything from removing all of the antivirus software on the server to scouring the MS Technet and downloading/installing every patch that even hinted at this kind of problem.

Cheers.

 

[DrWatson101]

I had a similar issue that in the short term was corrected with a reboot.

Later I discovered that one of my Internet Mail connectors was corrupt. Had to delete force re-route and then recreate the internet mail connector on the problem server.

Exchange Administrator
ADTRAN Inc.
Huntsville AL

 

[willH3]

Thanks ... I'll give it a go and let you know how it turns out.

Cheers

 

[TheFoxRocks]

This problem and it's start date is WAY too coincidental!

Our Exchange 5.5 server is exhibiting the same problem with outside recipients not getting the attachments.

The problem was first reported around the 13th of January.

I have visited one of the recipients and checked their Outlook Express 6 settings and noticed that the email actually has the attachment embedded in the email, but Outlook does not show it. (Yes Security is turned off for attachments)

The problem never shows if I send an attachment to my yahoo account or to a dialup account at my ISP's, so it seems to be mail server dependant, not *neccesarily* my mailserver...

However, I am wondering if our server is somehow causing it?

We recently added a Linux mailserver at a remote plant on our WAN and I did change the HTML & RTF settings on our Exchange server to make the Linux server work better. That was a few weeks ago though and no problems were reported until last week...

I would appreciate any ideas.

Randy
M.I.S Manager
SRI Homes

 

[willH3]

Ok, here's what I've done.

I basically deleted and recreated the Internet Mail connector on the Exchange server, and so far (touch wood) it's working Ok.

I only did this half a day ago, so it's still very much in the testing phase but it is looking hopeful.

 

[TheFoxRocks]

We have resolved our problem using a different method but I would guess that deleting and recreating the internet connector would have fixed it as well *if you leave the settings at the default*.

I noticed on the Internet Mail page of our primary domain, the attachments outbound Plain Text was checked and HTML was off.

I set the HTML back on and retested with success using the HTML format option in Outlook.

Testing with RTF format though again failed.

Turning off Plain text made both work.

Fixed!

 

[striker77]

Hi guys!

I'm new to the forum because of this problem....

The problem i have is that e-mails sent in html format are stripped of their attachments by some (not all) mail servers and the recipitent does not receive the attachment intended but sometimes has an attachment named attach3 but has no file extension. To go along with this the html mail loses its formatting as does a RTF format mail (but keeps its attachment).

I'm baffled!

TheFoxRocks you suggested:

I noticed on the Internet Mail page of our primary domain, the attachments outbound Plain Text was checked and HTML was off.

I set the HTML back on and retested with success using the HTML format option in Outlook.

Testing with RTF format though again failed.

Turning off Plain text made both work.

Fixed!

Where exactly are these settings?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Dave

 

[TheFoxRocks]

In the Exchange Administrator Program
Connections
Internet Connection
the tab is Internet Mail
The settings are settable for all domains on that page
They are customizable by domain using the Email Domain button

Goor luck!

rr

 

[tschouten]

Ok I've just run into this problem as well. However it is very specific. It happens only when someone sends messages to Lotus Notes Domains. This is a known Lotus Issue, what happens is when a Rich Text, HTML, (any thing other than Plain Text) is sent out the attachment winmail.dat is sent with the emails. This causes Lotus to incorrectly read the format of the mail. (Go figure). I know this isn't exactly what you guys are experiencing but it is similar. Can't wait till I upgrade 5.5 to 2003 this year. Anyhow the fix is pretty much the same force all emails out as plain text.

Gots to love all that crap....

The only reason I'm posting this is because I know someone else out there may be experiencing this porblem as well.

Joy!!