Open Bug 219181 Opened 21 years ago Updated 12 years ago

attachments get messed up when importing messages from outlook 2003

Categories

(MailNews Core :: Import, defect)

Product:
MailNews Core
Component:
Import
Platform:
x86
Windows XP
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
major

Tracking

(Not tracked)

People

(Reporter: aaron, Unassigned)

References

(
URL
)

Details

(Whiteboard: workaround: move data first to OE/Outlook Express) 

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; Q312461; (R1 1.1); .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
Build Identifier: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.2 (20030901)

Attachments can get totally messed up.  I've been importing messages with 20 
small .txt files attached.  First of all, the attachments are being renamed 
(this is a problem in my case because the names of the attachments start with 
the same string and the different part of the name is getting truncated 
leaving me with 20 attachments with the same name that are very hard to 
save).  Secondly, a wierd new attachment named "Part 1.1" is being created and 
added to the message.  In my case it seems to be a strange amalgam of some of 
the original attachments.  There may be more problems but those are the ones I 
noticed right off.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.
QA Contact: asa
Build Identifier: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.3 (20031013)

Attachments from Outlook 2003 when Importing on WinXP do not import with the
messages.  Instead no attachments are imported.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1) Tools->Import->Mail->Outlook
2) Look at any messages that had attachments.
This is same as Mozilla Mail&News bug 199298 or bug 210606 (They are still
UNCONFIRMED, sigh...)
*** Bug 224278 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
This bug is not a complete duplicate of the two above, because it also deals 
with renamed attachments (comment 0) and missing attachments (comment 1 and the 
duplicate I just marked). The body of the message being created as an 
attachment is dealt with in bug 199298, as you say.
I've just tried to import my mails from Outlook 2003 to Thunderbird 20031126,
the attachments were not imported.
Anyway, this bug is also present in Mozilla Mail&News. Could someone please
change it accordingly?
Can someone attach expected mail source(sent mail to Mozilla from Outlook by
forwarding as attachment - message/rfc822) and imported mail source?
This is in fact three quite separate bugs. As originally reported, and
concerning an unspecified version of Outlook, it is 1) a dupe of bug 199298 and
bug 210606 and 2) a report that attachments are renamed. Then bug 219181 comment
1 is bug 3) relating to Outlook *2003* (newly released at the time of the
comment), stating that attachments are not imported. This clearly does not apply
to Outlook 2002.
The issue in comment 1 (see also comment 8) has now been reported as a separate
bug 235159.
I can try to look at this, but without a copy of Outlook, I'm not sure what I
can do. I can't remember if outlook import uses simple mapi or not...
Assignee: mscott → bienvenu
I confirm the same effect with my WinXP & Outlook 2003.
Here is a suggestion, I use Outlook just because I need to connect to some
Exchange Acounts, etc... I use it for a long time and I've the Outlook pst file
in a non-standart folder for security purposes (format c: :P), yet since Outlook
2000 I always upgraded and he never gave me any "warning" or "conversion", so I
assume the file wasn't upgraded in anyway. Suggestion is to get the mails
directly from the pst files. This is a much cleaner way to do the job since it
would be faster (thunderbird/mozilla mail is slow to import) and it wouldn't
need me to setup Outlook as my default mail client as it requires now.

Also, importing filters (at least the simpliest ones) would be great!
the pst file is a binary format that we don't know the format of, isn't it?
That's why we use MAPI...
There is a site on MS Outlook - http://www.outlookcode.com/d/mapi.htm
And next link says about accessing Outlook mail resources.
> Samples - * MAPI example code for getting folders and messages
  ( http://www.wischik.com/lu/programmer/mapi_utils.html )
"To load a PST file" & "To iterate over messages in a folder" seems to be an
example of PST file access.
(Sorry but I can't understand it) 
That example uses MAPI to read the PST file - that's what we're already doing. I
have Outlook 2003 now, so I can try this.

A workaround for this is to first import from Outlook into Outlook Express. Then
import into TB from Outlook Express. Apparently the conversion from O to OE
translates from MS-TNEF into a standards compliant format. Note that this works
for the (HTML) formatting of the message body as well as any attachements.

IMO whatever OE is doing TB should be doing as well. Since OE does NOT
understand MS-TNEF itself (AFAIK) it must be instructing Outlook to do something
which TB does not ask Outlook to do during the import.
Outlook 2000 & Thunderbird 1.0 on Windows 2000. Attachments are transferred
along with messages, but they are all corrupted. They do not open directly from
TB attachment nor after being saved on disk. The messages themselves are OK.
I've found that David fixed bug 199298 on 2004-11-04.
> Bug 199298 : Import from Outlook moves msg body to Part 1.1 attachment
A Japanese tester reported to Bugzilla Japan that "non didplayed text
problem and part 1.1 problem" did not occur when imported mails from
MS Outlook 2000 by Thunderbird 1.0(fix for bug 199298 is applied).

Aaron Stephanic, does problem still remain?

(In reply to comment #16)
> they are all corrupted.
> They do not open directly from TB attachment nor after being saved on disk.
Ari Kaihola, your new problem is different problem.
Keep "Single problem per a bug", please.
Seacrh bugzilla(Product=Core shoud be searched also).
And open new bug as problem even after fix for bug 199298
with clarifying whether import problem or attachment handling problem,
if(and only if) your problem is new.
QA Contact: front-end
> major (perhaps should even be critical) because workaround is not obvious
URL: http://www.outlookcode.com/archive0/d...
Severity: minor → major
Component: Mail Window Front End → Import
Product: Thunderbird → MailNews Core
QA Contact: front-end → import
Summary: attachments get messed up when importing messages from outlook → attachments get messed up when importing messages from outlook 2003
Whiteboard: workaround: move data first to OE/Outlook Express
Assignee: dbienvenu → nobody
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