390799 - Attachment with extension .dat are lost

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Tobias Krüger]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6
Build Identifier: version 2.0.0.6 (20070728)

When I try to send a file with the attachment ".dat" it is lost.
The mail is transmitted, but the attachment is gone.
It is missing at the receipient and in the Sent Folder.

If I rename the file and give it another filename the file is transmitted.
It does not depend on the file size (tried 15 Bytes plain text and binary > 1 MByte). 

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create simple text file and save it as "test.dat"
1. New Mail
2. Attach file with extension .dat (e.g. test.dat)
3. Send it
Actual Results:  
The mail is sent, but without the attachment

Expected Results:  
I guess thats obvious

Server: MS Exchange
Protocol: IMAP

Comment 1

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(In reply to comment #0)
> Reproducible: Always
> Steps to Reproduce:
>(snip)
> 3. Send it
>(snip)
> Actual Results:  
> The mail is sent, but without the attachment

Execute "Send Later" instead of "Send", then move the mail in Unsent Folder of "Local Folders" to other local mail folder(to avoid really sent), and check mail source.
Attachmet is already lost?

Comment 2

[Tobias Krüger]

In this case the attachment is still at the mail.

Comment 3

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(In reply to comment #2)
> In this case the attachment is still at the mail.
Once mail data is passed to SMTP server, mail client can do nothing.

(In reply to comment #0)
> If I rename the file and give it another filename the file is transmitted.
This indicate that ".dat" attachment was removed by servers.
  SMTP server you use, or IMAP server you use
It is usually done by spam filtering service or virus check service.
 

Comment 4

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

To Tobias Krüger(bug opener):
Is there any progress in your problem analysis?
Have you found any evidence that says your problem was caused by Tb's fault(bug)?
If no, please close as INVALID.
If you need help, read MozillaZine Knowledge Base articles, and ask for help in support forums such as MozillaZine forums.
  http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/
  http://kb.mozillazine.org/Category:Thunderbird
  http://kb.mozillazine.org/Category:Issues_%28Thunderbird%29

Comment 5

[Tobias Krüger]

It seems to be related to my Thunderbird profile, but I have not figured out the real cause.
I have created a second profile on my PC which does not show this behavior. 

I have compared both profiles but I could not find any difference, that causes the problem. 
I also installed all plug ins into the new profile, but no change.
In the old profile the extensions are lost, in the new one TB works as expected.

Tobias

Comment 6

[rsx11m]

No comments for eight months, is this still a problem?

If yes, and you assume a problem with your profile, what is the associated MIME type for the ".dat" attachments? You can find this out by following the procedure in comment #1, then look up View > Message Source for the unsent message and find the "Content-type" entry of the attachment.

Comment 7

[Tobias Krüger]

I solved this as in comment #5 by creating a new profile.
Actually it was frustrating, not to find the reason why the old profile swallowed the attachments.
In the meantime I reinstalled my system so the old profile does not exist anymore.

I am not sure, if I should change this bugs status?
Perhaps somebody else can make this decision.

Tobias

Comment 8

[rsx11m]

My guess would have been that some settings in mimeTypes.rdf associated the ".dat" files with some MIME type that got removed afterwards, e.g., by a spam filter or anti-virus software (as suggested in comment #3). The fact that it shows up when saved as draft or unsent message shows that attaching and encoding of the file succeeded.

I'm resolving this since the problem is no longer reproducible, please feel free to reopen the bug if the problem reoccurs.