Closed Bug 271886 Opened 20 years ago Closed 19 years ago

Display something for message with invalid mime: no 'boundary' specified in mult/alt

Categories

(MailNews Core :: MIME, enhancement)

Product:
MailNews Core
Component:
MIME
Type:
enhancement
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED EXPIRED

People

(Reporter: gmh, Assigned: sspitzer)

Details

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

Many news postings do not display in thunderbird 0.9+ 20041126(and all previouus)
These appear to come from a variety of news posters, mostly outlook, the common
thread is a strangely constructed mime attachments, usually both some plain text
and html.  The issue may also related to relatively fancy "business card"
attachements. An example from an internal sgi newsgroup - the content is
relatively innocuous.

Path: fido.engr.sgi.com!kraftwerk.corp.sgi.com!storage-se-owner
From: Edward Croft <edwardc@sgi.com>
Newsgroups: sgi.engr.storage-se
Subject: IBM AIX/GPFS with TP9500
Date: 26 Nov 2004 08:01:28 -0800
Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 93
Approved: mailnews@fido.engr.sgi.com
Distribution: sgi
Message-ID: <co7k0o$2e5766$1@fido.engr.sgi.com>
Reply-To: Edward Croft <edwardc@sgi.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.engr.sgi.com
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
X-Trace: fido.engr.sgi.com 1101484888 81935085 127.0.0.1 (26 Nov 2004 16:01:28 GMT)
X-Complaints-To: news@fido.engr.sgi.com
NNTP-Posting-Date: 26 Nov 2004 16:01:28 GMT
Precedence: bulk
Xref: fido.engr.sgi.com sgi.engr.storage-se:5973

This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand
this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.

------_=_NextPart_001_01C4D3D1.3141CAFC
Content-Type: text/plain

We have an immediate opportunity (decision to be made in the next week) to
supply 80TB of TP9500 storage which will be attached to an IBM AIX system
running GPFS. 

Do we have any experience of doing this elsewhere? Is there an account
manager you know I could talk to? Did we encounter any problems? I
understand that there are some firmware specific aspects such as failover
which could be problematic, or do we have work arounds?

Many thanks for your time, I'd be very grateful for any feedback you can
provide. 

Ed
----------------------------- 
Edward Croft

Media Consultant
Tel:+441189257664
Fax:+441189257689
Silicon Graphics UK Ltd
1530 Arlington Business Park
Theale
Reading
RG7 4SB
 
NB: Information in this message is SGI confidential. It is intended solely
for the person(s) to whom it is addressed and may not be copied, used,
disclosed or distributed to others without SGI consent. If you are not the
intended recipient please will you notify me by email or telephone, delete
the message from your system immediately and destroy any printed copies.
Thank you. 
 

------_=_NextPart_001_01C4D3D1.3141CAFC
Content-Type: text/html

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=us-ascii">


<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1400" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV>
<P><FONT face=Arial><FONT size=2><SPAN class=016115915-26112004>We </SPAN>have 
an immediate opportunity (decision to be made in the next week) to supply 80TB 
of TP9500 storage which will be attached to an IBM AIX system running GPFS. 

</FONT></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Do we have any experience of doing this elsewhere? Is 
there an account manager you know I could talk to? Did we encounter any 
problems? I understand that there are some firmware specific aspects such as 
failover which could be problematic, or do we have work arounds?</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Many thanks for your time, I'd be very grateful for 
any feedback you can provide. </FONT></P></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=016115915-26112004><FONT face=Arial 
size=2>Ed</FONT></SPAN></DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>

<P align=left><FONT size=-1>-----------------------------</FONT> <BR>Edward 
Croft</FONT></P>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Media Consultant</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Tel:+441189257664</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Fax:+441189257689</FONT></DIV>

<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Silicon Graphics UK Ltd</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>1530 Arlington Business Park</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Theale</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Reading</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>RG7 4SB</FONT></DIV>

<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000000><FONT face=SGI color=#000080 size=7><SPAN 
class=973563010-03092002><FONT face=Arial color=#000000 size=2><STRONG><FONT 
color=#000080><FONT size=7><FONT 
face=SGI></FONT></FONT></FONT></STRONG></FONT></SPAN></FONT></FONT></DIV>

<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=1>NB: Information in this message is SGI confidential. 
It is intended solely for the person(s) to whom it is addressed and may not be 
copied, used, disclosed or distributed to others without SGI consent. If you are 
not the intended recipient please will you notify me by email or telephone, 
delete the message from your system immediately and destroy any printed copies. 
Thank you.</FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV></BODY></HTML>

------_=_NextPart_001_01C4D3D1.3141CAFC--
----------------------------------------------------------------
This message has been sent to the SGI Internal List
'storage-se@ils.corp.sgi.com'. The contents of this message
should be considered SGI CONFIDENTIAL. If you wish to remove
yourself from this list, please visit http://ils.corp.sgi.com.
----------------------------------------------------------------




Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Recieve badly constructed news posting
2. Attempt to display
Note: view source can show the text


Actual Results:  
Blank message in the display window

Expected Results:  
displayed the posting
There is no boundary parameter in "Content-Type: multipart/alternative;" header.
How can a mailer detect bounday in this case?
Do you say should be displayed as "text/plain;" when "Content-Type: multipart"
header with no boundary parameter?

Since RFC 2045 says 'the "boundary" parameter is required for any subtype of the
"multipart" media type', '"Content-Type: multipart" header with no boundary
parameter' can be considered to be 'Invalid mail header".
If this is applied, this message can be considered to be "text/plain;" message
because default Content-Type is text/plain if no Content-Type header or invalid
or unknown mime type.
But in this case, "Content-Type" and "multipart/alternate" are valid.
And consider Jpeg file part or PDF part in such message and imagine Jpeg or PDF
data display as text.
I can not afford to it.
I think handling this message as "no part in multipart" is appropriate.
(In reply to comment #1)

> I think handling this message as "no part in multipart" is appropriate.

The problem is that nothing at all is displayed for the message text.  
Displaying at least the plain text part would be better, trying to make sense of
the html better than that.

I realize this is an incorrectly formed posting - but it's what many news
posters,  notably several versions of outlook, produce.  It may not be right,
but it is common, at least in the postings I see largely inside my company which
is mostly an outlook shop.  Thunderbird should be more forgiving - other mail
readers (e.g. outlook) are.  I think this is one of those "accept everything,
and send only the most correct" cases.    The problem may also be in the
mail-news gateway we use at SGI - I'm still trying to sort that out. 
(In reply to comment #2)
> Displaying at least the plain text part would be better, trying to make sense
of the html better than that.

How the part(text or html) can be found when no boundary parameter?
Do you say search line start with "--"?
Do you say search "Content-Type" lines in body data portion in addition to
header portion of message?
Please note that body data before first boundary *SHOULD* be ignored.

Good question - maybe NextPart to NextPart for starters - that seems to give at
least the text, then the next one the html - whatever is doing this appears to
be using NextPart to mark the various sections. 

(In reply to comment #0)
> User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5)
Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
> Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5)
Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
> 
> Many news postings do not display in thunderbird 0.9+ 20041126(and all previouus)
> These appear to come from a variety of news posters, mostly outlook, the common
> thread is a strangely constructed mime attachments, usually both some plain text
> and html.  The issue may also related to relatively fancy "business card"
> attachements. An example from an internal sgi newsgroup - the content is
> relatively innocuous.
> 
> Path: fido.engr.sgi.com!kraftwerk.corp.sgi.com!storage-se-owner
> From: Edward Croft <edwardc@sgi.com>
> Newsgroups: sgi.engr.storage-se
> Subject: IBM AIX/GPFS with TP9500
> Date: 26 Nov 2004 08:01:28 -0800
> Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA
> Lines: 93
> Approved: mailnews@fido.engr.sgi.com
> Distribution: sgi
> Message-ID: <co7k0o$2e5766$1@fido.engr.sgi.com>
> Reply-To: Edward Croft <edwardc@sgi.com>
> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.engr.sgi.com
> Mime-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
> X-Trace: fido.engr.sgi.com 1101484888 81935085 127.0.0.1 (26 Nov 2004 16:01:28
GMT)
> X-Complaints-To: news@fido.engr.sgi.com
> NNTP-Posting-Date: 26 Nov 2004 16:01:28 GMT
> Precedence: bulk
> Xref: fido.engr.sgi.com sgi.engr.storage-se:5973
> 
> This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand
> this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.
> 
> ------_=_NextPart_001_01C4D3D1.3141CAFC
> Content-Type: text/plain
> 
> We have an immediate opportunity (decision to be made in the next week) to
> supply 80TB of TP9500 storage which will be attached to an IBM AIX system
> running GPFS. 
> 
> Do we have any experience of doing this elsewhere? Is there an account
> manager you know I could talk to? Did we encounter any problems? I
> understand that there are some firmware specific aspects such as failover
> which could be problematic, or do we have work arounds?
> 
> Many thanks for your time, I'd be very grateful for any feedback you can
> provide. 
> 
> Ed
> ----------------------------- 
> Edward Croft
> 
> Media Consultant
> Tel:+441189257664
> Fax:+441189257689
> Silicon Graphics UK Ltd
> 1530 Arlington Business Park
> Theale
> Reading
> RG7 4SB
>  
> NB: Information in this message is SGI confidential. It is intended solely
> for the person(s) to whom it is addressed and may not be copied, used,
> disclosed or distributed to others without SGI consent. If you are not the
> intended recipient please will you notify me by email or telephone, delete
> the message from your system immediately and destroy any printed copies.
> Thank you. 
>  
> 
> ------_=_NextPart_001_01C4D3D1.3141CAFC
> Content-Type: text/html
> 
> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
> <HTML><HEAD>
> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
> 
> 
> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1400" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
> <BODY>
> <DIV>
> <P><FONT face=Arial><FONT size=2><SPAN class=016115915-26112004>We </SPAN>have 
> an immediate opportunity (decision to be made in the next week) to supply 80TB 
> of TP9500 storage which will be attached to an IBM AIX system running GPFS. 
> 
> </FONT></FONT></P>
> <P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Do we have any experience of doing this elsewhere? Is 
> there an account manager you know I could talk to? Did we encounter any 
> problems? I understand that there are some firmware specific aspects such as 
> failover which could be problematic, or do we have work arounds?</FONT></P>
> <P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Many thanks for your time, I'd be very grateful for 
> any feedback you can provide. </FONT></P></DIV>
> <DIV><SPAN class=016115915-26112004><FONT face=Arial 
> size=2>Ed</FONT></SPAN></DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>
> 
> <P align=left><FONT size=-1>-----------------------------</FONT> <BR>Edward 
> Croft</FONT></P>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Media Consultant</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Tel:+441189257664</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Fax:+441189257689</FONT></DIV>
> 
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Silicon Graphics UK Ltd</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>1530 Arlington Business Park</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Theale</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Reading</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>RG7 4SB</FONT></DIV>
> 
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000000><FONT face=SGI color=#000080 size=7><SPAN 
> class=973563010-03092002><FONT face=Arial color=#000000 size=2><STRONG><FONT 
> color=#000080><FONT size=7><FONT 
> face=SGI></FONT></FONT></FONT></STRONG></FONT></SPAN></FONT></FONT></DIV>
> 
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT>&nbsp;</DIV>
> <DIV><STRONG><FONT size=1>NB: Information in this message is SGI confidential. 
> It is intended solely for the person(s) to whom it is addressed and may not be 
> copied, used, disclosed or distributed to others without SGI consent. If you are 
> not the intended recipient please will you notify me by email or telephone, 
> delete the message from your system immediately and destroy any printed copies. 
> Thank you.</FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
> <DIV>&nbsp;</DIV></BODY></HTML>
> 
> ------_=_NextPart_001_01C4D3D1.3141CAFC--
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> This message has been sent to the SGI Internal List
> 'storage-se@ils.corp.sgi.com'. The contents of this message
> should be considered SGI CONFIDENTIAL. If you wish to remove
> yourself from this list, please visit http://ils.corp.sgi.com.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Reproducible: Always
> Steps to Reproduce:
> 1. Recieve badly constructed news posting
> 2. Attempt to display
> Note: view source can show the text
> 
> 
> Actual Results:  
> Blank message in the display window
> 
> Expected Results:  
> displayed the posting


I find it hard to believe that this structure is "common."  Do you have any idea 
what news client generated the message?  (It does not appear to be Outlook.)
The bug really needs to be filed against that program, not Mozilla.

That said, there are other bugs asking for support for other sorts of malformed 
messages, so why not this one too?
Assignee: mscott → sspitzer
Severity: normal → enhancement
Component: General → MailNews: MIME
OS: Windows 2000 → All
Product: Thunderbird → Core
Hardware: PC → All
Summary: badly constructed (but common ) mime format news postings don't display → Display something for message with invalid mime: no 'boundary' specified in mult/alt
Version: unspecified → Trunk
On further investigation, the damage appears to be caused by an news-mail
gateway script.  We're looking at fixing it, provided we can find someone who
actually can understand this particularly ancient piece of code.

But - outlookexpress (and presumably outlook) displays these messages through
it's newsreader, although with the notation:

This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand
this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.

------_=_NextPart_000_01C50EBC.6EEDF53A
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C50EBC.6EEDF53A"


------_=_NextPart_001_01C50EBC.6EEDF53A
Content-Type: text/plain

i.e. it shows the bad stuff verbatim.

It would seem that thunderbird should be at least as tolerant.
This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 19 years ago
Resolution: --- → EXPIRED
Product: Core → MailNews Core
You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.