[Mailman-Users] Everything is an attachment

[Steve Campbell]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Sapiro" <msapiro at value.net>
To: "Steve Campbell" <campbell at cnpapers.com>; <mailman-users at python.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 11:38 AM
Subject: Re: [Mailman-Users] Everything is an attachment


> Steve Campbell wrote:
>
>>I have set up a list that is used for announcements only. There is a list 
>>of
>>members, but only a few can post. No digests, just immediate delivery. We
>>have a mixed bag of recipient MUAs here, and although OE receives the mail
>>normally, Outlook users receive email with the header only in the body of
>>the email, and the real body and footer as attachments.
>
>
> This indicates the list header and footer are being added as separate
> mime parts.
>
>
>>I have searched the archives/FAQ for a solution and may have found an
>>answer, but am not sure. The FAQ 4.39 seems to indicate no real solution
>>other than changing MUA,
>
>
> Or sending a single part, plain text only post in the character set of
> the list language (us-ascii for English).
>
>
>>but in
>>
>>http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users@python.org/msg36757.html
>>
>>the solution was a blank line in the footer.
>
>
> I think you're misinterpreting that post. I think she is saying her
> problem was caused by a footer which consisted of only a blank line
> and when she removed the footer completely, the problem went away.

That's not hard for me to believe (that I'm misinterpretting, I mean).
>
>
>>I have a header with a carriage
>>return that forms the blank line. Although this is easy to test to see if
>>this is really the problem, is there an easy way to create the separator
>>line to allow a blank line between the header and body other than asking
>>each poster to remember to put a blank line at the top of the body? I'm
>>still not sure why the footer is also an attachment.
>
>
> The blank line is not the issue. If both a header and a footer are
> added, either both will be added inline if possible, or both will be
> added as separate MIME parts.

>
>
>>I checked the sender's Outlook prefs and checked the "Send as plain text" 
>>in
>>his Contacts for this particular address, but that did not help. Can 
>>anyone
>>think of another place I may need to change something?
>
>
> That should be part of the solution. The other part (at least in
> Mailman 2.1.6 and above), is an attempt is made to convert everything
> to unicode and then back to the character set of the list (us-ascii
> for English). If this fails, an attempt is made to convert back to the
> character set of the original post, and if that fails, the header and
> footer are added as separate parts.

Does anyone have RPMs for something 2.1.6 or greater for an RHEL 3/Tao 1.0 
system. I am running 2.1.5 as this seems to be the latest available from the 
normal yum repositories. Maybe this would help. Are there any gotchas for 
the upgrade if I find them?

>
> So the bottom line is the original post must be a single part, plain
> text message, and in a declared character set that contains all the
> characters used in the message, header and footer.
>
> If you have set the poster's Outlook to send 'plain text only' to the
> list, I suspect the problem may be "smart quotes" or other characters
> in the message.

I'm still not finished testing, but I did get the sender to receive the 
header, body, and footer all in one message. He forgot to add the 
attachment. So the test was a little inconclusive.

Thanks for the help

Steve

>
> -- 
> Mark Sapiro <msapiro at value.net>       The highway is for gamblers,
> San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan
>