Corrupt attatchments since upgrade to Tiger

D

Daiya Mitchell

Please also see posts from Michael in this thread, who certainly sounds like
somebody who is trying to figure out the problem. Use google if you can't
see the entire thread:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/microsoft.public.mac.office.entourage

Considering the nature of this problem--that it doesn't affect everyone, and
certain situations seem able to avoid it--it is perhaps time to start
thinking about whether it could be interaction with other applications
besides Tiger. I'm never quite sure how one tests that in OS X.
 
C

cpressey

Daiya Mitchell May 10, 11:33 am show options
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.mac.office.entourage
From: Daiya Mitchell <[email protected]> - Find messages by
this author
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 08:33:05 -0700
Local: Tues,May 10 2005 11:33 am
Subject: Re: Corrupt attatchments since upgrade to Tiger
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I've got the same problems with corruption. Has anyone resinstalled
Click to expand...
Office?

Some people say they tried that. Use google to read the entire thread
if
necessary.
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/microsoft.public.mac.office.entou...

MS is aware of the problem, but that's all that's known so far.

Y'all could start trying to figure out if there is any type of pattern
among
the people who see this problem--e.g., other applications installed,
pattern
among recipients, etc. Not everyone sees it, so....
Did everyone run all the updates to Office, including the 11.1.1 one?
What type of Tiger install did you do? Does it fail on all recipients, or
say, just windows recipients? The first poster said only attachments over
40K, does everyone see that pattern? Someone else said AppleDouble works
sometimes, anyone else see that? Etc, etc.
Click to expand...
Those type of questions might arrive at a trigger, if not a
Click to expand...
workaround.

Reply

Upgraded to Office 11.1.1, which does not change Entourage, which
remained at 11.1.0. Did an upgrade of Tiger, and this morning updated
to tiger 10.4.1. Problem still occurs, reagrdless of other apps
running/not running. Even did a safeboot and still no usable
attachement. Problem persists regardless of compression used/not used,
regardless of encoding (UUEncode, MIME, Apple double, etc.) and does
not matter if the end recipient is Windows or Mac. I've set up test
accounts on various outgoing and incoming mail servers to try both
sending and recieving - garbage every time.

I have however copied my MS User Database from a Tiger machine to a
machine configured exactly like my Tiger was prior to the Tiger Upgrade
(i.e. it's on 10.3.9 with the same apps and configs - I duplicate the
settings at my office computer, but upgrade at home first just in case
somethign like that happens).. the same Database when copied to a
10.3.9 system running Entourage 11.1.0 (040913) does send attachments
correctly.

There is no apaprent "size threshold" that I've noticed. a 32k pdf gets
just as corrupted as a 6MB pdf.

I'm thinking my current option is to do a clean install of Panther and
actual d-d-d-d-downgrade (wow that was as painful to type as it's going
to be to do... sigh) to get back to usability until this is solved.
Unfortunately, attachements are the main way I communicate with my
clients and not being able to send them is, well.. it's a problem!
 
C

cpressey

One additional item that may (hopefully) prove helpful: I had a
friend email me a PDF from a non-tiger system. I received it fine, then
FORWARDED that email to myself on the Tiger system. I received the
attachment fine. It didn't seem affected by the forward. I also took
that SAME pdf, saved it to my desktop, created a new email to a test
account, attached the PDF from the desktop and send it. It was also
received fine....

which really seems odd - until I thought of Spotlight, which didn't
have a chance to scan the PDF - nor did the PDF have any kind of
metadata tags that I'm aware of. I'm wondering (and this is completely
an out of the blue guess.....) is there a difference in the way that OS
X Tiger "codes" or "writes" or "updates" or otherwise somehow change
files that Entourage may be having trouble with? It seems files that
don't touch a Tiger drive, or aren't on it more than a few moments
email out jsut fine. Those that sit on the Tiger-controlled drive, or
that were created on the Tiger-drive end up corrupted??

It reminds me of the old problem of resource forks showing as separate
files from the actual Mac file when transferred to a Linux server
several years ago - if you didn't copy both files back from an archive
you got garbage, even though it appeared to be one file on the Mac
end...


Hope this is helpful and not a goose chase.... :)
 
D

Daiya Mitchell

Someone seeing the problem just said they use FileVault. Might that be a
common factor among the people seeing corrupted attachments?
 
D

Daiya Mitchell

I'm thinking my current option is to do a clean install of Panther and
actual d-d-d-d-downgrade (wow that was as painful to type as it's going
to be to do... sigh) to get back to usability until this is solved.
Unfortunately, attachements are the main way I communicate with my
clients and not being able to send them is, well.. it's a problem!
Click to expand...

I'm thinking setting up Mail would be less trouble than downgrading, but
your call.
 
H

Holger Schleicher

Michael said:
Is this problem occurring only with POP accounts?
Click to expand...

No, i've got the same problems with IMAP accounts. BTW: Outgoing Mail
is always sent with SMTP. Receiving is not the problem in this
discussion.

Environment here: G4 1,33 GHz, Update from 10.3.9 to 10.4.1 (german)
(not clean installed). No Problems with < 10.4. Latest Office Version
(checked with auto update). Compression "none", Encoding "Apple
Double". No matter what client receives my mails.

Sincerely

Holger
 
P

Philipp Zirker

I have previously posted that MS ARE aware and are investigating.
Click to expand...

Really great answer, Barry.
Just remember Windows machines. There are about 1000000 bugs in
MS-Software and all the windows-users get is a "Microsoft has concerned
this being a problem". Hahaha.
To know about the existance of a problem dosn't bring a fix.
And for me it's a really urgent thing.
I can't imagine that MS hasn't had all the developer-editions of Tiger
without finding this problem. It's really poor that we pay hundreds of
dollars for a piece of software and they need weeks or month for a
little fix...

But now back to topic:
I think the Office 11.1.1 update causes the problem.
I reinstalled my complete system the last two days. I installed Office
11.1.0 and sent some test-mails - attachments arrived correctly.
Today I applied 11.1.1 - and (sh*t) - corrupted attachments.
At the moment I try to clean up my HDD from every Microsoft-file and
try to reinstall Office.
This time I woun't apply 11.1.1 update - let's see what happens...

CU,
Philipp
 
C

Colt West

I work at a software/web development company and the first thing our
team of "gurus" came up with was this very thing....that Spotlight was
causing the problem in the way that it changes file headers for
indexing. So, I turned off Spotlight's access to the Microsoft User
Data folder in my home directory a few days ago. No luck...attachments
still corrupted...but Entourage did speed up a some. Now, with that
being said...the "gurus" also thought that Microsoft might not have
"followed the rules" when it comes to file structure on the Mac. Not to
totally beat up Microsoft here, but that it wouldn't be the first time
for them to bend the rules a bit. If that's the case, that might
explain why Entourage attachments are corrupted and Mail's attachments
are not...and Tiger brought this bug out. Again, just a theory.
 
J

JE McGimpsey

Philipp Zirker said:
I can't imagine that MS hasn't had all the developer-editions of Tiger
without finding this problem. It's really poor that we pay hundreds of
dollars for a piece of software and they need weeks or month for a
little fix...
Click to expand...

Since most of us don't have this problem, it's hardly surprising that
this wasn't found. While MS has extensive test labs, they don't have
every conceivable combination of apps and OS components. So far, at
least, there's no evidence yet as to whether it's even an MS problem.

Apple's not exactly a virgin at making last minute changes that screw
developers who rely on their published specs, after all.

And if MacBU can't see the problem (as I can't), they certainly can't
fix it. That said, I've got no idea whether or not they can reproduce
the problem.
But now back to topic:
I think the Office 11.1.1 update causes the problem.
I reinstalled my complete system the last two days. I installed Office
11.1.0 and sent some test-mails - attachments arrived correctly.
Today I applied 11.1.1 - and (sh*t) - corrupted attachments.
At the moment I try to clean up my HDD from every Microsoft-file and
try to reinstall Office.
This time I woun't apply 11.1.1 update - let's see what happens...
Click to expand...

That would be very interesting, since Entourage itself isn't even
affected by the 11.1.1 update, which AFAICT, applies to only the
following 6 apps/files:

Microsoft Excel
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft Office
Visual Basic for Applications
Camera & Scanner Plug-in
Microsoft Component Plugin
 
J

JE McGimpsey

Colt West said:
Now, with that being said...the "gurus" also thought that Microsoft
might not have "followed the rules" when it comes to file structure
on the Mac. Not to totally beat up Microsoft here, but that it
wouldn't be the first time for them to bend the rules a bit. If
that's the case, that might explain why Entourage attachments are
corrupted and Mail's attachments are not...and Tiger brought this bug
out. Again, just a theory.
Click to expand...

Since a successful theory would have to explain all the users of
Entourage and Tiger that *don't* generate corrupt attachments, too, did
the "gurus" postulate a particular problem with file structures that
would only affect a minority of users?

Not saying they're wrong - I just can't think of how that would work.

I'm just stymied, given that I typically send 15 or 20 documents a day
(Office docs, jpegs, gifs, pngs, from 20KB to 2MB) back and forth to
clients on both Macs and Windows, and as of today, not one has been
corrupted.
 
C

Colt West

I would be really interested in seeing if the 11.1.1 update is the
cause of the problem.
 
H

Holger Schleicher

Really great answer, Barry.
Just remember Windows machines. There are about 1000000 bugs in
MS-Software and all the windows-users get is a "Microsoft has concerned
this being a problem". Hahaha.
To know about the existance of a problem dosn't bring a fix.
And for me it's a really urgent thing.
I can't imagine that MS hasn't had all the developer-editions of Tiger
without finding this problem. It's really poor that we pay hundreds of
dollars for a piece of software and they need weeks or month for a
little fix...

But now back to topic:
I think the Office 11.1.1 update causes the problem.
I reinstalled my complete system the last two days. I installed Office
11.1.0 and sent some test-mails - attachments arrived correctly.
Today I applied 11.1.1 - and (sh*t) - corrupted attachments.
At the moment I try to clean up my HDD from every Microsoft-file and
try to reinstall Office.
This time I woun't apply 11.1.1 update - let's see what happens...

CU,
Philipp
Click to expand...

No, i 've had this problem with 11.1.0, too.

CU

Holger
 
A

aog

I'm running the latest Tiger and Office 2004 latest update.
I Too Had the same problem and found that My Compression Settings were
changed after update Once i re-installed Stuffit and uncheck
compression the problem went away
 
B

Barry Wainwright

Really great answer, Barry.
Click to expand...

Well, I'm mightily relieved you think so.
Just remember Windows machines. There are about 1000000 bugs in
MS-Software
Click to expand...

.... And in every other major software package...
and all the windows-users get is a "Microsoft has concerned
this being a problem". Hahaha.
Click to expand...

'all' apart from bug fixes, service packs, updates, KB articles describing
fixes and work-rounds etc.... (ha, ha, ha)
To know about the existance of a problem dosn't bring a fix.
Click to expand...

No, it doesn't.

Just wishing for a fix doesn't fix it.
Whingeing about it doesn't fix it.
Posting here doesn't fix it.
I can't fix it.
You can't fix it.

Only MS can say whether or not they can fix it, and they can only say that
when they have found out the cause of the problem. Since such a small
minority of users are experiencing the problem it is unlikely to be anything
inherent in the office suite. It is far more likely to be some sort of
system conflict, maybe with third party applications. This sort of stuff
takes time to track down.

Perhaps you would rather MS came out and said "We will issue a fix for this
problem on 1st June, even though we don't know what is causing it or even if
there is a bug in our software"? I'm sure you would be more than willing to
follow up such a statement on 2nd of June?

And for me it's a really urgent thing.
Click to expand...

I'm sure it is. It would be for me.
I can't imagine that MS hasn't had all the developer-editions of Tiger
without finding this problem. It's really poor that we pay hundreds of
dollars for a piece of software and they need weeks or month for a
little fix...
Click to expand...

Ah, so you _know_ what the problem is? Can you please spare a little time
from you busy schedule to drop a line to macBU to let them know as well,
because I'm not so sure they have managed to reproduce the problem yet, much
less find the cause. In return, I'm pretty certain they'll implement that
'little fix' just for you.
But now back to topic:
I think the Office 11.1.1 update causes the problem.
I reinstalled my complete system the last two days. I installed Office
11.1.0 and sent some test-mails - attachments arrived correctly.
Today I applied 11.1.1 - and (sh*t) - corrupted attachments.
At the moment I try to clean up my HDD from every Microsoft-file and
try to reinstall Office.
This time I woun't apply 11.1.1 update - let's see what happens...
Click to expand...

Interesting. I would like to see more confirmations of this - maybe it is a
clue to the root cause, although it doesn't seem to be a universal scenario
- many people are running 11.1.1 without the problem, and some who are
seeing the problem state they are still running 11.1.0
 
C

Christopher Pressey

Mail is too sparse on the features I require and, call me crazy, but
I'm just not fond of it nor Address Book! I know I know. Bad Mac Lover!
 
C

Christopher Pressey

Reinstalled stuffit standard 9.02 this morning - waste of time. corrupt
attachment continue.

Also - someone asked about FileVault - it's never on.
 
D

Daiya Mitchell

Just wishing for a fix doesn't fix it.
Whingeing about it doesn't fix it.
Posting here doesn't fix it.
I can't fix it.
You can't fix it.
Click to expand...

But posting all relevant information here might help get it fixed! Look how
many things we've already eliminated as sole factors for whatever MacBU
employee might be lurking in search of data on this problem--or might
eventually check the archive for it.
 
B

Bond_Lawyer

I had the same propblem after a "dirty upgrade" from 10.3.9 to 10.4.0
and using Office2004. Without uninstalling any MS Office components, I
fiddled with all my Entourage "Attachments" preferences. I randomly
changed them to several configurations, exiting and relaunching
Entourage each time and sending test email messages each time (each
containing Word, PDF and PPT files as attachments). I did NOT trash any
preference files. Finally, I returned to the original settings
(AppleDouble, No Compression, Append file name extensions, and Send
attachments to Cc and Bcc recipients). I do not know how or why doing
that dance fixed the problem for me, but it is now most definitely
fixed. Hope this helps.
 
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