Exchange 2007 converts mails from/to html when using WebDAV

[Beat Rubischon]

Hello!

I'm coming from Mactopia forums and microsoft.public.exchange.admin - last
try to find a hint for my problem:

I'm connecting my Entourage 2008 over WebDAV to my employers Exchange
server. Since the move from Exchange 2003 to 2007 I see two strange
problems:

- All plaintext Mails downloaded from the Exchange 2008 are converted to
HTML

- All HTML mails sent through the Exchange 2008 are converted to plaintext

It looks like the WebDAV connector on Exchange 2008 uses some "filtering"
which alters (destroys) my mails. Intensive Googeling showed two referencies
in the net about the same problem - both were unanswered.

As a workaround I switched to POP / SMTP loosing the calendar and contacts
sync to the Exchange account.

Is there any switch on the Exchange side to disable this behaviour? I'm
working for a really small company and the mail administrator does
everything for me :-)

Beat

--
\|/ Beat Rubischon <be...@0x1b.ch>
( 0^0 ) http://www.0x1b.ch/~beat/
oOO--(_)--OOo---------------------------------------------------
Meine Erlebnisse, Gedanken und Traeume: http://www.0x1b.ch/blog/

[William Smith [MVP]]

Beat Rubischon wrote:
> Hello!
>
> I'm coming from Mactopia forums and microsoft.public.exchange.admin - last
> try to find a hint for my problem:
>
> I'm connecting my Entourage 2008 over WebDAV to my employers Exchange
> server. Since the move from Exchange 2003 to 2007 I see two strange
> problems:
>
> - All plaintext Mails downloaded from the Exchange 2008 are converted to
> HTML
>
> - All HTML mails sent through the Exchange 2008 are converted to plaintext
>
> It looks like the WebDAV connector on Exchange 2008 uses some "filtering"
> which alters (destroys) my mails. Intensive Googeling showed two referencies
> in the net about the same problem - both were unanswered.
>
> As a workaround I switched to POP / SMTP loosing the calendar and contacts
> sync to the Exchange account.
>
> Is there any switch on the Exchange side to disable this behaviour? I'm
> working for a really small company and the mail administrator does
> everything for me :-)

Hi Beat!

First, be very careful about version numbers when posting to avoid
confusion. You mean Exchange Server 2007 and Entourage 2008.

I don't have an answer for you but would like to gather some evidence.

From a plain text and from an HTML message in Entourage can you please
check their sources (Message menu --> Source) and report back with the
Content-Type header of each? They will look something like this:

Content-Type: text/html;
charset="iso-8859-1"

If you view the same messages via Outlook Web Access (OWA) do they still
appear as the wrong type? Don't be distracted that plain text messages
may appear as HTML in your browser. Replies are the best indicators.
You'll see horizontal rule lines in HTML messages and quoting characters
"> " in plain text messages.

--

bill

Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
YouTalk <http://nine.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/youtalk>
Twitter: follow <http://twitter.com/meck>

[Beat Rubischon]

Hi Bill!

Am 21.09.08 18:12 schrieb "William Smith [MVP]" unter
<meck...@REM0VETH1S.comcast.net.INVALID> in
#ugbqTAH...@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl:

> Beat Rubischon wrote:
>> I'm connecting my Entourage 2008 over WebDAV to my employers Exchange
>> server. Since the move from Exchange 2003 to 2007 I see two strange
>> problems:
>> - All plaintext Mails downloaded from the Exchange 2008 are converted to
>> HTML

> First, be very careful about version numbers when posting to avoid

> confusion. You mean Exchange Server 2007 and Entourage 2008.

Right. Sorry for the confusion.

> From a plain text and from an HTML message in Entourage can you please
> check their sources (Message menu --> Source) and report back with the
> Content-Type header of each? They will look something like this:

HTML mails in the mailbox (checked by accessing over IMAP) are kept as they
are. Charset, plaintext/base64 and mime type are the same in Entourage.

Text mails have this mime types on the Exchange server, once again checked
over IMAP:

---8<---
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Beat,
...
---8<---

Downloaded to Entourage they look like this:

---8<---
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV=3D"Content-Type" CONTENT=3D"text/html; =
charset=3Diso-8859-1">
<META NAME=3D"Generator" CONTENT=3D"MS Exchange Server version =
08.01.0278.000">
<TITLE>Simple testmail</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<!-- Converted from text/plain format -->

<P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Beat,<BR>
...
---8<---

> If you view the same messages via Outlook Web Access (OWA) do they still
> appear as the wrong type?

Definitively not. OWA wraps around a CSS class, but let the text itself as
it is:

---8<---
<font size="2"><div class="PlainText">Beat,<br>
<br>
...
</div></font>
---8<---

>> - All HTML mails sent through the Exchange 2008 are converted to plaintext

I checked this again and it looks OK - I was not aware that Entourage sends
a text/html and text/plain when composing a HTML mail which confused me the
first time I read the source. I use the feature of HTML quite seldom :-)

[William Smith [MVP]]

Beat Rubischon wrote:

> Downloaded to Entourage they look like this:
>
> ---8<---
> Content-Type: text/html;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
>
> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
> <HTML>
> <HEAD>
> <META HTTP-EQUIV=3D"Content-Type" CONTENT=3D"text/html; =
> charset=3Diso-8859-1">
> <META NAME=3D"Generator" CONTENT=3D"MS Exchange Server version =
> 08.01.0278.000">
> <TITLE>Simple testmail</TITLE>
> </HEAD>
> <BODY>
> <!-- Converted from text/plain format -->
>
> <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Beat,<BR>
> ...
> ---8<---

That's very interesting.

I can't for any reason understand why or how Entourage would convert
plain text to HTML.

When you say you're checking via IMAP is that through Entourage too? If
so then the culprit could actually be the WebDAV component that
Entourage uses for its connection.

[Beat Rubischon]

Hi Bill!

Am 25.09.08 04:41 schrieb "William Smith [MVP]" unter
<meck...@REM0VETH1S.comcast.net.INVALID> in
OBwQEhrH...@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl:

> I can't for any reason understand why or how Entourage would convert
> plain text to HTML.

Do you think the conversion is done by Entourage? The header added to the
HTML mail says something else:

<META NAME=3D"Generator" CONTENT=3D"MS Exchange Server version =
08.01.0278.000">

But I'm not the expert :-)

> When you say you're checking via IMAP is that through Entourage too?

Right! I still like the program - it's not the perfect mailclient, but the
least bad one for me.

[William Smith [MVP]]

Beat Rubischon wrote:

>> I can't for any reason understand why or how Entourage would convert
>> plain text to HTML.
>
> Do you think the conversion is done by Entourage? The header added to the
> HTML mail says something else:
>
> <META NAME=3D"Generator" CONTENT=3D"MS Exchange Server version =
> 08.01.0278.000">
>
> But I'm not the expert :-)

Looks very much to be that your original assessment is correct. Exchange
/WebDAV are doing something odd. Do you know if your server is fully
patched and up-to-date?

>> When you say you're checking via IMAP is that through Entourage too?
>
> Right! I still like the program - it's not the perfect mailclient, but the
> least bad one for me.

If only we in the U.S. didn't have to choose our presidents this way...