[SOLVED] Outlook attachments are blank

[Ehenzel1978]

I am having an issue where some of the attachments and even the body of the email is blank in outlook. The headers are all correct, and the attachment shows like it's there, but when you open it, it's blank. Doesn't matter what type of file the attachment is, or even if it's an email from an external address or internal. I've even had it happen to vcard files sent from outlook. It doesn't happen all the time, but it is happening more often.

I've run every test I can think of, and it seems to happen about 30% of the time. If we get an email body that is blank, we can go into webmail and see what looks like machine code instead of the message. And all the attachments so far open from webmail just fine.

I am running ME Enterprise 8.51, and the problem started when I upgraded to 8.50. With 8.50 we were getting a lot of performance issues as well, so I upgraded to 8.51 hoping to solve the problem. The performance issues were solved, but the blank message bodies and attachments are still happening and getting worse.

I run windows server 2008 R2 64-bit, with MXscan Lite on the server. I also have AVAST! end point protection setup on the server for anti-virus on the file side, but it does not scan emails, or the message store for ME, or any of the MXSCAN folders.

The clients run either Outlook 2007 or 2010, with Avast! for their anti-virus.

Could it be MXscan Lite causing the issue? Or is it something with the way ME is playing with Outlook?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[rfwilliams777]

Have you checked the origin of the senders? The issue if you are getting the .dat attachment is due to a malformed email from someone using Exchange. You can convert those attachments on the recipient end by using a third-party program or the sender needs to stop using Exchange. I am not saying all Exchange users experience this issue, but it is a very well known Exchange issue.

[MailEnable-Ian]

Hi,

Start by disabling the AVAST plugin in Outlook as this maybe filtering the emails and triggering on the content. How is Outlook configured and how do the users connect to the server? I.e What MailEnable service do they connect to retrieve mail? I'm not too sure I understand when you say: we can go into web mail and see what looks like machine code instead of the message. Do you mean you can see the message contents and attachments in the web mail preview window? MXSCan has known to cause problems in terms of adding disclaimer notices to base64 encoded message content in plain text which maybe the issue therefore ensure you are not adding disclaimer notices in MXScan.

[Ehenzel1978]

Thank you for the replies.

I don't think the origin of the sender matters, as it will happen when receiving from anyone, even if I send a message to one of my coworkers on the same domain on the same ME server.

The clients are configured using a combination of IMAP and MAPI. Some use Outlook 2007, others use 2010. All are set to retrieve the entire message, not just the headers. (The only clients having the issue are the ones on the same local network as the ME server.)

What I mean by we can see them in the Webmail is, when we get a message body that is blank in outlook, we can go into webmail and see meaningless combinations of letters and numbers. They will stretch all the way across the preview pane, and go on for about 200 - 250 lines. Just one big block of the stuff.

As for attachments, when received to outlook, the attachment looks perfectly normal until you click on it. Whether you preview, open, or save it, it's always blank. If it was an Excel spread sheet, you get a blank spread sheet, if it was a PDF, you get a corrupted pdf message, if it was a vCard, you get a blank vCard, if it was a word document, you get a blank document. Same for all sound, movie, and picture files. If you open the same attachment in webmail, it works just fine.

I have disabled the email sheild in Avast on a few clients to see if that helps, and I haven't had anyone say that it has happened today, but we sometimes go 2 or 3 days between occurrences. Then one day it will happen to everyone, for almost all the emails. This isn't an all the time problem, that's what is making it hard for me to pin down.

If disabling the email shield doesn't work, I'll try disabling the Avast plugin. I'm turning off the disclaimer notices in MXscan now. Hopefully that will help. Any other ideas?

Thanks again for all the help.

[MailEnable-Ian]

Hi,

It definately sounds like MXSCan is the culprit since you have the disclaimers notices enabled. The scrambled text you see is base64 encoded content in the headers where the disclaimer notice is added to this section in plain text and corrupts the content.

[Ehenzel1978]

Thank you Ian. That seems to have done the trick. We haven't had any scrambled messages or blank attachments since I removed the footer from MXscan. If the problem crops back up, I'll post it to the forum again.

[rohanb105]

Hi,

I am facing the same problem. I tried the same trick by disabling footer messages in MX scan but still i can see this problem. This is troubling my users so much that i have to find some solution on this.

[Ehenzel1978]

It's more than likely still a MXScan issue though. I would try disabling the MXscan to make sure.