Mangled attachments

I have been having a LOT of trouble since the Smartermail migration. (Seriously, we would have left and switched to another host by now, but unfortunately, most of the others are also using Smartermail as well.)

The problem is with outgoing attachments being corrupted. The weird thing is, it does not happen all of the time. It will be fine for a week or two, then for a stretch of three or four days, attachments we send out will come through mangled.

We routinely send outDOC files, RTF files, PDF files, and WAV files. They will either be upopenable by the recipient, or, sometimes in thecase of sound files, be very distorted.

When this happens, we will then send out the EXACT SAME FILES using a plain vanilla Gmail account, or an ISP account, and they will then come throughABSOLUTELY FINE on the other side.

I want to point out that this never, never, NEVER happened before Smartermail. It started happening almost immediately AFTER Smartermail, and has since been recurring with annoying freqency.

We have also noticed a number of email messages being sent to us through your servers (from Web pages) have garbage characters at the end of the text. This happens only occassionally, and again, only started occuring after Smartermail. However, we cannot be sure if this is a Smartermail issue.

The attachments, however, are a different story. If I can successfully send the same attachment thorough several different NON-Smartermail accounts, but cannot do so with my DiscountASP accounts, I see that as a problem with DiscountASP, not with the files.

I actually filed a support ticket on this but was basically told by DiscountASP, "It's not our problem." Oh, really? Anyone have a different explanation then?

 

I'm willing to help you test this problem.
So far I use my SmarterMail accounts from Outlook 2007 when I send and receive attachments.

I'm guessing you're seeing this problem from the web access, correct?
Can you give specific steps to reproduce these errors?
Salute,
Mark

 

No, we arenot using web access. We are using Outlook 2003 for all email incoming and outgoing, including our accounts through DiscountASP, our ISP accounts, and our Gmail accounts.


And I cannot actually reproduce steps to duplicate the problem. As I said -- compose the mail, attach a file, that's it.


However, what I COULD do is, if you have an email to which I can send you something, I can demonstrate the issue by sending you the identical file by two different means -- one through a DASP account, and one through another account like Gmail. You will be able to confirm that the attachment sent via DASP is corrupted, while the same attachment through Gmail is perfect.


Like I said,you would need to providean email address to send to. Perhaps you can PM me with one?

 

OK..Once I receive the file do you want me to send you a file attachment from the same SmarterMail account?
Try [email protected]

btw, if you Google for Outlook 2003 file attachment corruption you'll find a lot of hits.
Your problem may very well be related to some of the things I found just now.
As an example, does this seem to happen to files over 7MB?

I never have been a fan of Outlook, only use 2007 because it ties in with SQL Server so well.
Primarily I still use Eudora and never have file attachment troubles.
Salute,
Mark

 

No Mark, these files are NEVER that large. For anything that size, we would use FTP anyway. Even the .WAV files are low-bandwidth mu-law format and are almost always under 500KB.


I will try it with a PDF file, and then with a small .WAV file.


If you could bounce the GOOD file(s) back through the same Smartermail account, that might be helpful to see what happens.


I see what you're saying about Outlook, but remember, we are accessing ALL of our accounts this way, and only the Smartermail accounts are causing trouble.

 

If you would like to send me that ticket number via private message, I'll take a look at it. If someone said, "it's not our problem," that's not cool.




Having said that, sometimes an issue is not our problem, and we have to get that unwelcome message across. Hopefully we do so with as much tact as possible. But there are not a lot of ways to deliver a message someone doesn't want to hear.

I'm not saying that applies in your case, I don't know. But email is a tricky thing to troubleshoot. The first thing people look at is usually the host, but we're just the local drop box. There's a very large global postal service out there that handles the message after we send it on it's way, and we can't tell them how to handle the package.

Anyway, let's see how your tests go.








mjp
---
DiscountASP.NET

 

I got all 4 messages just now with the attachments.

Now keep in mind I'm honestly trying to help you with this but...

All 4 attachments were perfect.

The PDF files were each previewed within Outlook 2007, exactly the same.

The WAV files both sounded perfect, no distortions.

I do a lot of work with both of these file types, even DSP in WAV files, kicking it to the next level.

If you want I'll bounce the files back to you but I don't see where that's needed this time.
Let me know if you do, and let me know which account you want them sent to.

Are you by any chance running an outgoing viral protection?

I used to have trouble with outgoing files, in binary format, when I used Internet Security from Symantec.
Now I'm using Windows Live OneCare and never have the same trouble.
As a side note OneCare plays better with Visual Studio also.

Let me know what I can do to help.
Salute,
Mark

 

I've created SMTP and POP software and could write a book about what can go wrong.


As you're probably aware the "stateless" Internet "HTTP" handles our mail protocols over a, well, junk network.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP


At one end there's the client OS,the environment within and the ISP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMTP


In the middle is a, well, it's anybody's guess at times.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet


Then on the receiving end another ISP, more client environments than we can log, and finally a variety of OSes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Office_Protocol


There are a few things you can do to run further tests.


Chose a common compression tool, ZIP, RAR, etc.
Compress any and all outgoing files.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_archive_formats


As an example there is one file type I receive a lot, *.VMF, that will always become corrupted if it's not sent compressed.

 

Oh man, this is so frustrating.


Okay... I am willing, for the sake of advancing the ball, to assume that it's NOT happening at your drop box.


Can someone who is way smarter than me in the workings of email (that would mean you guys ) possibly explain what could be happening?


Is it possible that Smatermail is not playing nice with certain end-users mail servers?


On both of the files I sent you, I sent them with a Smartermail account on first try to their originally intended recipients, and in both cases the filescame throughbad. I then resent the same files to the same people with a Gmail account, and they got the files in perfect condition. Like I said, this is happening pretty frequently. Is there some possible explanation that makes plausible sense?


Again, could it have something to do with the recipient's end?


BTW, I am using CA, buthave outgoing email scanning turned off.


Thanks for trying to figure it out...