MailScanner sometimes strips Outlook attachments?

Jethro R Binks jethro.binks at strath.ac.uk
Mon Nov 17 10:14:18 GMT 2008


On Mon, 17 Nov 2008, Edward Dekkers wrote:

> I keep thinking I've hit the nail on the head, then another customer
> complains there's no attachment.
...
> I hate non-consistent problems as they are harder to diagnose, but does
> anyone have any idea what may be causing this?

I haven't paid much attention to your details, but I thought I would 
mention this.

Something I used to see with Outlook Express users of old, and possibly 
Outlook users now: they often complained that attachments were missing 
from spam warning reports they were being sent (for low-scoring spam).  
They would complain by replying to the warning, but almost always I could 
see the attachment they claimed was missing attached to the reply as 
expected!

It turns out there was a bug in Outlook Express where under some 
never-discovered circumstances the "paperclip" icon was not being 
displayed even though attachments were present, and users relied on that 
to know if an attachment was present.  If they went to "File | Save 
Attachments", the attachments were listed for saving.  Maybe something 
similar happens for Outlook users these days, but I have not heard of more 
than one report so have not looked into it.

Jethro.

-- 
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Jethro R Binks
Computing Officer, IT Services, University Of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK


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