inconsistenecy in MIME type of attachment

[novice]

Version: 2008

When i receive a mail with an attachment(.xls) which has been sent by entourage, i see the MIME type has been set as application/vnd.ms-excel.

When i receive the same message as a forwarded message( the same mail with the attachment) i see the MIME type changed to video/x-flv.

SO, my question is why the MIME is not consistent.

 

[Adam Bailey]

Version: 2008

When i receive a mail with an attachment(.xls) which has been sent by
entourage, i see the MIME type has been set as application/vnd.ms-excel.

When i receive the same message as a forwarded message( the same mail with
the attachment) i see the MIME type changed to video/x-flv.

SO, my question is why the MIME is not consistent.

The MIME type is established by the sender, not the receiver. In many
cases, it's also ignored. Unless you're having a problem, I wouldn't
worry about it.

 

[novice]

I would like to add some clarity to my post here.

I have a java mail program which processes the e-mail.

So, when my mail program retrieves a mail , in most cases it works fine.
But there is one unique situation when this is failing. That unique situation is when somebody is forwarding the mail with attachment from entourage. The MIME type is this case is video/x-flv, where as the attachment is a .xls file.

But the original mail coming from the same client(not forwarded) is coming with MIME type application/vmd-excel.

Appreciate if someone can explain me why there is this change in MIME type.