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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Problem in Mac "Mail" text is becoming the Attachment!!!

jojo_w - Jul 26, 2006 - 12:34 pm

I'm having a problem in Mac "Mail" (e-mail application) Version 2.1. When I e-mail someone an image attachment with a message to go along with it, the text part of the e-mail becomes an attachment as well! To them it looks like they got 2 attachments and no text in the e-mail. They can open the strange attachment that contains the text and read it just fine, but not everyone knows to do that. Why isn't the text part of the e-mail appearing where it should be?

BTW...the e-mails are going to PC users, not other Mac users. There is one other Mac user that I e-mail to on a regular basis, but never had any problems there.

Does this make any sense? I'm stuck! What can I do to fix this?

Thanks!
jojo_w

LovesMacs - Jul 26, 2006 - 5:41 pm

Hi Jojo,

My name is Carolyn and I will try to assist you :-)

First thing that comes to mind are your Mail Preferences. It sounds like they are corrupted and don't worry, it happens... here's a quick fix.

Go to your MacintoshHD>Users>Library>Preferences. Open the Preferences and locate this file: com.apple.mail.plist Drag that file to the Trash, empty the Trash and reboot.

Wouldn't hurt to run Disk Utility and Repair Permissions also. Disk Utility is in your: Applications>Utility folder. Launch DU, select MacintoshHD in the panel on the left, then click, "Repair Permissions". Quit Disk Utility.

See if that solves the problem, if not, reply and I'll keep searchng for possible fixes. And thanks for choosing Macosx.com.

Regards,
Carolyn :-)

jojo_w - Jul 27, 2006 - 1:15 pm

Carolyn,

Thank you so much for your quick response! I tried what you suggested. I think it kind of worked. I hope.

Just so you know when I tried this and rebooted my computer, my "Mail" application made me reset up my e-mail account. However, thankfully it still kept all my e-mails and folders in tact.

This fix seemed to work with a couple people that I email to, but a couple others still have some weird problems.

One PC user that I e-mail to, either doesn't get my attachments at all, can get PDFs OK, but for JPEGs she gets a message that says "Huffman symbol not found in JPEG read" and can't open it.

Another PC user that I e-mail to said that she still gets the text attached like a separate attachment if I attach a file in the middle of a sentence or portion of text. She gets the first half of the text as a regular e-mail and then where the attachment was placed on my end, the text got broken up and that section of text became an attachment. It is the weirdest thing I ever heard!

So far what you suggested seemed to work with all the other PC users, but my biggest problem is with these 2 particular users. Is there anything else you can suggest? I've tried searching the internet for answers and came up with nothing.

Thank you so much for looking into this for me!
jojo_w

LovesMacs - Jul 27, 2006 - 1:46 pm

HI Jojo,

Well, at least something worked. Three things come to mind ...

First, at the end of the day when you are finished using Mail, trash that com.apple.mail.plist file for a week. Preference files can cause a lot of little buggy things to happen like you are experiencing.

Second, the files you are attaching for PC users... it sounds to me like it might be in a format they cannot read. If it's a pic... always use .jpg
for text... as an example using TextEdit on your Mac. Open TextEdit, write some text.. when you save it Save As: Word Format If that doesn't do it try Save As: HTML PC users can read text created by the Macs Text Edit with WordPad in Windows XP. I use both Mac and Win and send files back and forth between my laptops so I know that works. Before you send any attachments, check to see the extension .. like .jpg or .rtf (for rich text) if you haven't got your system set up to "Show All File Extension" ... here's how to do that: On your Desktop go to Finder>Preferences. A pane will appear. Click Advanced. Click: Show All File Extensions. That way when you "attach" a file to an e-mail you can see exactly which format it's in.

Third... what ISP are you using? If it's AOL, they are having major mail problems right now. I just sent my girlfriends mail and they got it three times LOL... and the attachment was messed up. This has been happening for a week and I'm told the problem should be fixed soon. Even if you are using the Mail application on your Mac, your mail has to go thru your ISP, whichever one you have.

Hope this helps you... post back anytime :-)

Carolyn

jojo_w - Jul 28, 2006 - 7:14 am

Thanks Carolyn for all your help!

I will do what you suggested. Hopefully it will work better.
I appreciate the advice! I'll let you know if there is any change.
Thanks again!

-jojo_w