MIME E-mail Not Displaying Properly In Outlook

[James B]

Hi,
We recently replaced our Win2K SBS server with a Win2003 R2 SBS Premium
server. Ever since we installed the new server we've been having problems
with MIME based e-mails ("multi-part message in MIME format"). These e-mails
do not display correctly (such as HTML or CSS's of HTML e-mails displayed as
plain text) and attachments being included in the body of the e-mail (such as
images being displayed as 1,000's of characters inside the body of an e-mail).

All of this makes HTML & MIME e-mails impossible to read.

We’re using Exchange 2003 (with all the latest SP’s & updates) and Outlook
2003 (with all the latest SP’s & updates). We’re also running AVG 8 Small
Business Server edition which has an Exchange plugin.

This server is our only server so it’s the DC, Exchange server, IIS server,
ISA server, etc.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks,
James B

 

[Rich Matheisen [MVP]]

Hi,
We recently replaced our Win2K SBS server with a Win2003 R2 SBS Premium
server. Ever since we installed the new server we've been having problems
with MIME based e-mails ("multi-part message in MIME format"). These e-mails
do not display correctly (such as HTML or CSS's of HTML e-mails displayed as
plain text) and attachments being included in the body of the e-mail (such as
images being displayed as 1,000's of characters inside the body of an e-mail).

All of this makes HTML & MIME e-mails impossible to read.

We’re using Exchange 2003 (with all the latest SP’s & updates) and Outlook
2003 (with all the latest SP’s & updates). We’re also running AVG 8 Small
Business Server edition which has an Exchange plugin.

This server is our only server so it’s the DC, Exchange server, IIS server,
ISA server, etc.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Have a look at the raw message. My guess is that there's either an
empty line in the message headers that's causing the message to be
seen plain-text, or there's a missing MIME header in the message.

--
Rich Matheisen
MCSE+I, Exchange MVP
MS Exchange FAQ at http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm
Don't send mail to this address mailto:[email protected]
Or to these, either: mailto:[email protected] mailto:[email protected] mailto:[email protected]

 

[James B]

Rich,
This problem is not just on one or two e-mail messages. It’s happening on
numerous e-mails from a variety of sources to most of our users (not everyone
has complained so it may in fact be all users). The senders are regular
contacts whom we’ve not experienced this type of problem from before.

For testing I have removed the e-mail & anti-spam components of our AVG 8
anti-virus software to see if they are affecting the e-mail content.


Thanks,
James

 

[Cliff]

Rich,
  This problem is not just on one or two e-mail messages. It’s happening on
numerous e-mails from a variety of sources to most of our users (not everyone
has complained so it may in fact be all users). The senders are regular
contacts whom we’ve not experienced this type of problem from before.

  For testing I have removed the e-mail & anti-spam components of our AVG 8
anti-virus software to see if they are affecting the e-mail content.

Thanks,
James







- Show quoted text -

My gut reaction is to say that during setup, some ISA rules got
misconfigured and are monkeying with your headers. My first
recommendation is to run the SBS and ISA (and maybe even exchange)
BPAs.

-Cliff

 

[James B]

Cliff,
I'm sure I've run one of them but I certainly haven't run all three of
them. I'll give it a shot.


Thanks again,
James

 

[Rich Matheisen [MVP]]

This problem is not just on one or two e-mail messages. It’s happening on
numerous e-mails from a variety of sources to most of our users (not everyone
has complained so it may in fact be all users). The senders are regular
contacts whom we’ve not experienced this type of problem from before.

For testing I have removed the e-mail & anti-spam components of our AVG 8
anti-virus software to see if they are affecting the e-mail content.

Regardless of how many messages are affected, until you know why
you're seeing what you're seeing you'll just be guessing about what's
causing the email to appear that way.

I've been running Exchange since 1996 and I don't think I've seen
Exchange munge a message like that -- and I wouldn't be sad to see
Exchange stop accepting malformed MIME messages.


--
Rich Matheisen
MCSE+I, Exchange MVP
MS Exchange FAQ at http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm
Don't send mail to this address mailto:[email protected]
Or to these, either: mailto:[email protected] mailto:[email protected] mailto:[email protected]

 

[James B]

Rich,
There doesn't appear to any consistency as to cause of the malformed
content.

It's good to know that you've never seen Exchange do this to a message -
that points me to the AVG Exchange plugin. I'll do more testing over the
weekend.

Thanks again,
James

 

[Rich Matheisen [MVP]]

There doesn't appear to any consistency as to cause of the malformed
content.

There may not seem to be, but I'll bet there is! It'll probably be
obvious once you find it.

It's good to know that you've never seen Exchange do this to a message -
that points me to the AVG Exchange plugin. I'll do more testing over the
weekend.

It'd be a good idea to contact their support folks.

--
Rich Matheisen
MCSE+I, Exchange MVP
MS Exchange FAQ at http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm
Don't send mail to this address mailto:[email protected]
Or to these, either: mailto:[email protected] mailto:[email protected] mailto:[email protected]