408114 - Forwarding an email with an attachment sometimes doesn't include the attachment - Make TB more tolerant to incorrect MIME structure: "attachment" in multipart/related

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, enhancement)

Description

[Michael Pope]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.1.10) Gecko/20071206 Firefox/2.0.0.10
Build Identifier: 2.0.0.9

When trying to forward an email with an excel spreadsheet file attachment from December 2007, thunderbird will not copy that attachment into the new email.

If I try forwarding another email, this time the email in question has a wav file attachment, this works.  The attached wav file is showing up in the forwarded email on the right hand side under attachments.

If I forward the email with the problem from my email account to my email account, manually attaching the excel spreadsheet by drag and drop from the original email, that works.  Then if I forward the already forwarded email, the attachment automatically attaches fine.

I found another email from the same person one month ago with an excel spreadsheet attached, just a little larger in size (3.2MB), this email I can forward with attachment no problems.

I also found another email from December 2007 with an excel spreadsheet attachment which has the same problems, exactly.  I cannot forward this persons email with attachment intact, but if I go back to an early email with attachment from the same person that works fine.

I run the f-prot virus scanner, but I don't have the virus scanner option set in thunderbird so this shouldn't be the problem.

So far this problem has only happened when the attachment is an excel spreadsheet, but it could be the size.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
This happens every time with those same emails, if I close down my machine and boot it up, those same emails have a problem.

1. Click on bad email with excel spreadsheet attachment.
2. Click 'forward' on that email

Actual Results:  
There will be no attachment.  If I continue on and forward it to someone there still is no attachment when they receive the email.

Expected Results:  
Taken the attachment from the original email and attached it to the new forwarded email which I'm composing.

The work around is to manually attach the excel spreadsheet via drag and drop from original to the forwarded email window.

Comment 1

[Marcin Giedz]

Hello,

Almost the same problem - didn't want to duplicate bug. 

Bug reconstruction:
1) you have to have email with e.g. PDF attachment or any other file
2) press Forward with attachement
3) Double click on attachment -> on Linux you will get message "Open nsmail.bin", file type: BIN file -> but should be PDF file, on Windows this problems is the same. 

Comment 2

[Paweł]

Hi,
i've same problem with thunderbird 3.0a1pre (2008020313).
forward with attachment doesn't work. forword function only creates mail with text and no attachments. 

Comment 3

[Thorsten]

I cannot confirm the bug described in "comment #0".
I can forward mails with attachments on TB2.0.0.12 and TB3.0a1pre without problems.

But I can confirm the behaviour/bug of comment #1.

If you select an existing message with attachment for forwarding. The dialogbox opens and shows the message and also the attachment.
If you click on the attachment (e.g. "test.xls") not the excel file opens. Just a tmp file should be opened.

Comment 4

[Rich Simone]

This bug is real and is also a problem with embedded pictures. During 1.5hrs. I was able to find others with this problem reported on this site and at other forums. No where did I find a solution. I tried - making everything "inline," and using "reply," and then changing the addresses. I also tried composite with quote message with the same result. In every composition window the pictures or attachment was present. When I hit send, they were lost or dropped from the message.

This is a serious bug and should have someone assigned to fix it.

Comment 5

[Corey]

We have multiple users unable to forward "Inline" with some attachments.  Specifically we have a Voice-Mail system that sends us e-mails with a *.wav file attached.  These e-mails when forwarded "Inline" DO NOT ever bring along the *.wav attachment.  They do however work when using forward as attachment setting.

In testing I tried sending myself the same .wav file that wouldn't forward, once received the new e-mail would forward inline with the attachment no problem, so it is not file specific, rather appears to be e-mail format specific.

Comment 6

[David A. Cobb]

I would confirm if I had the necessary permissions.  I'm finding that forwarded mail EVERY TIME leaves pictures (.jpeg, .gif)  behind.  I wind up having to save the pix on my desktop and attach them to the outgoing message.

IMNSHO, This is major functionality that is pretty thoroughly broken.

If it matters, I'm running Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1b1pre) Gecko/20081003 Shredder/3.0b1pre

Comment 7

[Aaron Lawrence]

Not a single person out of all these reports thinks to SAVE AN EXAMPLE email that won't forward properly, and attach it here?

Comment 9

[Aaron Lawrence]

Attachment: Example email with attachment, which loses the attachment when forwarded

Attachment from from bug 349826

Comment 10

[Aaron Lawrence]

Can reproduce the problem with the example

Comment 11

[David A. Cobb]

Has anyone checked whether all the emails that experienced problems were originated at aol?  Something about the way that mail system composes HTML is decidedly quirky -- often I have to stand on my head even to /see/ the attachments (or Inline pics).

Comment 12

[Zio Tibia]

I have this problem on Thunderbird 24.2.0(Win XP SP3 x86)forwarding inline.
I'm a network administrator and this bug affect some very stressful users.
I attach an example "AttachmentNotForwarded.eml".

Comment 13

[Zio Tibia]

Attachment: AttachmentNotForwarded.eml

This is an email that lose attachment when forwarded inline.
Tested on Thunderbird 24.2.0 Win XP SP3 x86.

The email was sent by a malware and originally contains a virus.
I altered manually the file removing real email addresses and changing the original attachment with a picture.

The altered file present the same problem of original file when forwared, so it isn't a problem related tu antivirus activity.

Comment 14

[Zio Tibia]

Attachment: AttachmentForwarded.eml

I imported AttachmentNotForwarded.eml into thuderbird as Darft, edited in Thuderbird to remove and reinsert the attachment so the file is almost the same.

Comparing this two files you can see two main differences:

1) The absence of SpamAssassin headers on "working message" (I don't thinl that the problem is this)

2) On the "not working" message there are the mime part with attachment inside another mime part.

I thing that point 2 is the problem.

If I open a message that contain an email as attachment I can se the file ".eml" and all attachment inside this. When I forward this email Thiderbird attach only the ".eml" file and not other files (otherwise I would double attachments).

So, when forwarding, thunderbird look for attachment only on first level of mime part, ignoring other mime parts inside it.

In this specific case the behavior is wrong.
Thunderbird has to remove the attachment only if the first level of mime parts is an attachment, otherwise it have to leave it.

Opening the problematic eml file with OutlookExpress and forwarding it the attachment is not remove.

Comment 16

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

An attachment requires a MIME structure of multipart/mixed.

"Example email with attachment, which loses the attachment when forwarded" has multipart/related, so the "attachment" is considered related to the HTML part, but it's not.

AttachmentNotForwarded.eml has a similar problem, there the "attachment" is related to an inner part of the overall multipart/alternative message.

Conclusion: The two cases presented here have invalid MIME structure.

We won't action this.

Comment 17

[Hauke Fath]

(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+1) from comment #16)
> Conclusion: The two cases presented here have invalid MIME structure.
> 
> We won't action this.

Oh, dear. I know this is a volunteer effort and all, but what happened to "Be strict in what you send, and accomodating in what you receive"?

Among the offenders here are clients as insignificant as Apple Mail. Speaking with my sysadmin hat on, this decision forces my users into either full-blown HTML rendering, or risk missing out on attachments and causing mis-communication on a business level - which has happened several times already in the past.

Announcing this, I fully expect the request to phase out thunderbird as the default, cross-platform MUA in my group.

Comment 18

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Well, the option to leave it on file is the same as a WONTFIX, if you wish.