Problems With Email Attachments

[F. Hayek]

I recently subscribed to a service, MaxEmail, that receives faxes for
me, converts them to .pdf files and emails them to me. It also receives
voice mail, converts it into Real Audio files and sends it as an
attachment as well. The problem is that the attachments don't seem to
open in Outlook Express (5.0.6 running under OS 9.2). The email messages
indicate that a file is attached and the name of the file, but when I
click on the triangle button to open the attachments pane it doesn't
open.

If a different sender sends me the same attachment everything works
fine???

If I direct MaxEmail to send the attachment to someone else, who usually
has a differnet email client everything works fine.

What's up here?

Fred

 

[D. Kirkpatrick]

I recently subscribed to a service, MaxEmail, that receives faxes for
me, converts them to .pdf files and emails them to me. It also receives
voice mail, converts it into Real Audio files and sends it as an
attachment as well. The problem is that the attachments don't seem to
open in Outlook Express (5.0.6 running under OS 9.2). The email messages
indicate that a file is attached and the name of the file, but when I
click on the triangle button to open the attachments pane it doesn't
open.

If a different sender sends me the same attachment everything works
fine???

If I direct MaxEmail to send the attachment to someone else, who usually
has a differnet email client everything works fine.

What's up here?

Fred

Try saving the attachment to disk and opening it from there.

If it does not open then there may be a problem with how the Mac is
assigning file types on download. If you can open the PDF with Adobe
Reader and the rm files with RealPlayer by opening the application
then using the "open..." menu feature then that is likely the problem.

In theory that should not be a problem for a Mac but it can be. Its
like assigning the .pdf or .rm suffix so that a PC can handle them.
Macs look for this information in the resource fork part of the data
but that can be lost in transmission over the net or be totally
missing from the supplying service.

In that case you need to tell File Exchange what programs to use.

File Exchange is a control panel that you can call up to make changes
or add/delete file type associations.

Outlook Express may also need to reference plug-ins (I am not sure)
that would exist for IE 5 for things such as Adobe Reader or
RealPlayer. If you have IE 5 but do not have the browser plug-ins for
those, try adding them in to the plug-ins folder.

After all changes do a restart to make sure the system is polled
properly regarding its new settings. It may not be stated to reboot
but its a good idea to be on the safe side, especially after changing
file associations.

Good luck.

 

[F. Hayek]

Try saving the attachment to disk and opening it from there.

If it does not open then there may be a problem with how the Mac is
assigning file types on download. If you can open the PDF with Adobe
Reader and the rm files with RealPlayer by opening the application
then using the "open..." menu feature then that is likely the problem.

In theory that should not be a problem for a Mac but it can be. Its
like assigning the .pdf or .rm suffix so that a PC can handle them.
Macs look for this information in the resource fork part of the data
but that can be lost in transmission over the net or be totally
missing from the supplying service.

In that case you need to tell File Exchange what programs to use.

File Exchange is a control panel that you can call up to make changes
or add/delete file type associations.

Outlook Express may also need to reference plug-ins (I am not sure)
that would exist for IE 5 for things such as Adobe Reader or
RealPlayer. If you have IE 5 but do not have the browser plug-ins for
those, try adding them in to the plug-ins folder.

After all changes do a restart to make sure the system is polled
properly regarding its new settings. It may not be stated to reboot
but its a good idea to be on the safe side, especially after changing
file associations.

Good luck.

After looking more closely at the problem (I looked at the Source Code
for the messages in question) I get the feeling that it's a problem with
the HTML construction of the message (it's only a feeling because I'm no
expert). The attachment is there and the attachment pane opens for a
fraction of a second, revealing the attachment file icon, only to have
it disappear behind the graphic at the top of MaxEmail's messages where
it is inaccessable to my attempts to open it.

And again, there is no problem opening these types of files in other
messages, so it seems pretty clear that the problem is with these
messages.

Is there a way I can turn off html viewing? -- Fred

 

[D. Kirkpatrick]

After looking more closely at the problem (I looked at the Source Code
for the messages in question) I get the feeling that it's a problem with
the HTML construction of the message (it's only a feeling because I'm no
expert). The attachment is there and the attachment pane opens for a
fraction of a second, revealing the attachment file icon, only to have
it disappear behind the graphic at the top of MaxEmail's messages where
it is inaccessable to my attempts to open it.

And again, there is no problem opening these types of files in other
messages, so it seems pretty clear that the problem is with these
messages.

Is there a way I can turn off html viewing? -- Fred

Check the settings files.

The question is whether the image was downloaded along with theHTML
instructions to display it.

If not, then the HTML can do nothing.

 

[george.dick]

I have Office-X.

It's in "Mail & News Preferences" - the "Read" tab - near the bottom.