"Attachment(s)" puzzle

[RHPConsult]

One of my longtime TeeEss correspondents and I have a puzzle.

In some of my recent dispatches to her of MAIL containing a variety of attachments – esp. of jpgs and wmvs – both those embedded in the text of the message, and others actually “attached”, what has been arriving at the other end of the pipe is hidden, invisible, necessitating my friend to go to FILE––>SAVE ATTACHMENTS.

Had I not mentioned the inclusion of the attached "exhibits" they might have never been searched for and found.

We’re both running Leopard.

Anyone have a clue as to this curious anomaly . . . as well as what I/we might do to/with it?

[Paddy]

What ISP is she using? Not sure if it makes a difference, but AOL for instance, does weird things.

[RHPConsult]

"optonline", not AOL. She's too smart.

Sound familiar?

[Xairbusdriver]

What time of day do these images disappear?

Are you sending them as RTF or plain text?
Does she have html enabled or not?
What size are the images? The largest she has seen and the smallest that did not show up?
Which finger are you using to click the "Send" button?
Are you using a 'template?'
Are you using a real plate?

Please answer these questions before asking others. Be sure to explain your answers in detail, use the back of this web page, if you need more room.

Please be aware that your questions are important to us, therefore, your IP address is being saved in our database for further use. You'll soon be hearing from some of our affiliates with many offers you'll probably didn't even know about! Thanks, again!

[RHPConsult]

What time of day do these images disappear?

VERY EARLY a.m. As soon as you figger-out who the recipient is, you'll know how early.
 
Are you sending them as RTF or plain text?

Read my "petition" before launching an interrogation. jpeg and wmv

Which finger are you using to click the "Send" button?

One not still in a cast.

Does she have html enabled or not?

Who knows?

What size are the images? The largest she has seen and the smallest that did not show up?

Big enough.

• • • •

I close, in the interests of efficiency with Johnny Carson’s best “answers”

1) Yes, I did.
2) Not a bit of truth to the rumor
3) Only twice in my life, and both times on Saturday
4) I can do either, but I prefer the first.
5) As often as possible, but I need more practice to be better at it.
6) Turkestan, Denmark, Chile and the Komandorskie Islands

Choose your preference,

[Xairbusdriver]

QUOTE

Are you sending them as RTF or plain text?

Read my "petition" before launching an interrogation. jpeg and wmv

"RTF" and/or "Plain text" are settings on your own app. See Mail Prefs->Composing-> Message Format: popup list. They have nothing to do with the format of the image/attachment, but may affect how the message is viewed.

QUOTE

Does she have html enabled or not?

Who knows?

She does or could. And so could you, if you asked.

QUOTE

What size are the images? The largest she has seen and the smallest that did not show up?

Big enough.

Once again, that is not a informative answer. The point is, many ISPs have limits on the sizes of images they allow to be included in a message. Some are ridiculously low. The images are probably still on the server but the customer may not be told that or that they are even there. They call that "Customer Service."

So, in the interests of actually helping you solve the problem, you can forego answering the last three questions. However, the first four may actually be contributing to the problem.

Finally, does she have a program like "Default Apps" that allows one to assign a specific app to open/display/use a specific file suffix. And that kind of app also can control the apps that use specific 'mime-types.' Again, without knowing what you are sending, and how in addition to how they are created/saved plus knowing how the recipients computer prefs are set, it may take quite a while, shooting in the dark, to provide a specific answer/solution.

Thanks for your attention to these details. And, remember, "Patience is a virtue always you want to see in others." :totfl:

[RHPConsult]

Are you sending them as RTF or plain text?

RTF. Have never changed anything from the default. I have sent her "stuff" for at least 9 years, w/o this problem.

Does she have html enabled or not?

Don't know.

What size are the images? The largest she has seen and the smallest that did not show up?

Comcast has a 10 MB limit. The wmv (aka RAIN) in question is 4.8 MB; the jpegs, 3.4 MB. Naither "showed"

The contrast is that despite many missives over the years w/attachemnts, this is the first time they were "concealed".

So, in the interests of actually helping you solve the problem, you can forego answering the last three questions. However, the first four may actually be contributing to the problem.

Finally, does she have a program like "Default Apps" that allows one to assign a specific app to open/display/use a specific file suffix. And that kind of app also can control the apps that use specific 'mime-types.' Again, without knowing what you are sending, and how in addition to how they are created/saved plus knowing how the recipients computer prefs are set, it may take quite a while, shooting in the dark, to provide a specific answer/solution.

Don't know. Aa soon as she reads this, the clouds may part and the answer(s) appear.

Thanks for your attention to these details.

I beg your pardon, for thinking you were only, in fact, half-serious in this response. After all, I have known you a long time, too, and so should be forgiven for my misperception.  

[Mayo]

Dick, instead of wasting time futzing with email attachments I suggest using Dropbox which is available in Mac, Windows and Linux flavors.

Dropbox is free for up to 2GB storage. It's a great way to keep 1Password data automatically synced between multiple Macs. And it also has a public folder feature where you can place large files for others to easily retrieve. There is also a "Photos" folders for sharing... photos.

And free is cheaper than MobileMe...!

[RHPConsult]

Thanks, Mayo, but if I can't directly "illustrate" my missives, they're not worth embellishing at all.

 I don't want to send somebody a snailmail, for example, talking about a grandchild's birthday party, then have to tell the reader to go to so-and-so/such-and-such to see the pics.

I send out 50-100 e-mails daily (or I did before my skeleton went on the fritz), most with attachments, without incident, 99.8% of the time.

[krissel]

As if you didn't guess by now, c'est moi.

Yes, html viewing is allowed, no limit on size, etc.   Up until the other day everything Dick sent me was visible. Now it isn't. I tested this by taking the video and some pics he sent me and sent them to myself. All came through as visible within the email.

Am off to the pool. Back later.  

[kbeartx]

Kris,

FWIW, I guessed it was you from the clues of Optonline, your gender, and 9.x years.

Are you using Mail or a diff email client?

I suppose it's possible that your prefs could have changed spontaneously, or w/ an auto-update...did you check your settings re: images?


RH,

what about your email client?  IIRC, you're one of those Eudora weirdos, yes?

If either of you wanna send me any of these messages-in-question for testing porpoises, freel fee to dew sew.


Kb

[RHPConsult]

No Eudora. Not now. Not ever.

Check your e-mail, kbear.

[krissel]

Problem solved. (I hope - send me something Dick.)

But why it started in the first place is a mystery.


As Dick mentioned earlier, all prior emails were viewed without problem until recently. I went through all the possible menu and preferences and could find nothing that applied, even tried changing the compose option from rich text to plain ,etc..
In my experimenting I found that when I selected the appropriate email and went to the View in menu, I could drop to Message>Next Alternative and Bingo, it would show the missing attachments.
Aha, so for some reason it was not reading these messages properly.

So off I went online to try to find someone else who had the same problem. Apparently this is not an unknown situation. I found many people complaining at the Apple boards with similar deals. Many were due to using Entourage or other email clients but I finally came across one that was exactly my problem. And there I found that I could use the Terminal to change the plist to make Mail read the emails by default as anything but plain text. But I didn't use Terminal, I just opened the plist in TextWrangler and changed the boolean key to "false". Restarted Mail and the previous emails now open with all the attachments visible.

QUOTE

The problem seems to be when the attachment is embedded in the Rich Text (HTML) version of the message. Mail, being the good citizen that it is, sends out both a plain text and rich text version of your message if you create it in rich text. Unfortunately, the current version of Mail does not parse the HTML version for embedded attachments, which is where the problem attachments seem to be located.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8475436


For now I've set the Mail plist to use other than plain text to view emails. Not the most elegant of ways to fix this but so far, so good.

[krissel]

Update: Dick sent me a couple emails with videos, pdf and a Powerpoint file, all of which were visible.  

[RHPConsult]

One more query, Detective Kris!

Any ideas how/why your prefs/procedures/processes get themselves modified in the first instance, presumably untouched by your hands?

I ask that because it seems to me that since some recent updates, oh over the past month or two, I have discovered that a few settings/prefs/whatever with which I've become comfortable, up and "changed themselves" without any intervention on my part. Drat!

And those were items I could directlyview/ experience, so to speak, not hidden in the bowels of some application, unrecognized in my amateur eyes.

So?

I know, I know Stuff Happens, but is there any idea floating about on how to minimize such unexpected "events"?

In the not too distant past I recall two other correspondents of mine (one Windoze - now just about to switch, Whoo Hoo! –and the second, a recent switcher) both of whom have reported that on apparently "random" occasions no attachments showed. I'm going to refer them to this informative thread.

Many thanks.