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illegible messages from android phones (base64) in Eudora 7.1

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prap...@gmail.com

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Sep 2, 2013, 10:32:11 AM9/2/13
to
Messages sent from my Android phone (or anyone else's) are illegible in Eudora 7.1, apparently because they are encoded base64. I understand that this is totally unnecessary for plain text messages, but Android's email client does it anyway.

Has anyone found a solution to allow Eudora to read these messages?

Does anyone know of an android email client that doesn't do this?

Alfred Molon

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Sep 2, 2013, 3:44:05 PM9/2/13
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In article <8da165d8-9c70-448e...@googlegroups.com>,
prap...@gmail.com says...
>
> Messages sent from my Android phone (or anyone else's) are illegible in Eudora 7.1, apparently because they are encoded base64. I understand that this is totally unnecessary for plain text messages, but Android's email client does it anyway.
>
> Has anyone found a solution to allow Eudora to read these messages?
>
> Does anyone know of an android email client that doesn't do this?

I'm having the same problem. Not only with Android phone emails, but
also with certain Outlook emails containing attachments.
Here is an example of how such emails start:

Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-
com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word"
xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40" Bᅵ XY ?Bᅵ Y] H
Y\]Z]ᅵHï¿œï¿œÛ [ᅵ
U \ H?content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12 (filtered medium)">
<style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
--

Alfred Molon
http://www.molon.de - Photos of Asia, Africa and Europe

JillB

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Sep 3, 2013, 2:27:20 AM9/3/13
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I'm using Eudora 7.1 receive messages from friends (as well as test messages from myself) from Android's Gmail client - no problems at all with how they display in Eudora. Perhaps the problem is with a Eudora setting?

John H Meyers

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Sep 4, 2013, 9:48:09 AM9/4/13
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On 9/2/2013 9:32 AM:

> Messages sent from my Android phone
> (or anyone else's) are illegible in Eudora 7.1,
> apparently because they are encoded base64.

"Base64" is the standard MIME encoding method
for all binary email attachments, and is often used
for text attachments as well, so of course
Eudora decodes base64 100% perfectly,
for otherwise properly formatted messages.

Therefore, we can take it for granted that
something else is wrong with the messages,
or may have to do with the single standard that Eudora
never implemented, which is UTF-8 (universal character set).

> I understand that this is totally unnecessary for plain text messages,
> but Android's email client does it anyway.
> Has anyone found a solution to allow Eudora to read these messages?

Before my doctor writes any prescription for any antibiotic,
he insists on sending a sample of the infection to a lab,
to identify the specific microbe(s) involved.

Are there not different available mail apps
for your phone? So "Android phone" is not likely
to be the sole characteristic which matters.

What's needed to identify the real problem in this case
is the complete "original source" of some typical message
exhibiting this symptom.

You can not get this from Eudora itself, unfortunately
(the "blah blah blah" button displays only the original
_main headers_, and then may mangle everything afterward).

You could get this from either a different computer client
(any other than Eudora) or from Gmail, or (usually)
from ISP webmail for reading the same messages on-line.

A multi-part MIME message has a set of headers in each "part,"
and these, in particular, as well as some original "parts,"
are lost by Eudora before you can read anything,
and by that time, whatever was wrong has probably
left no adequate evidence behind.

--

John H Meyers

unread,
Sep 4, 2013, 10:24:13 AM9/4/13
to
On 9/2/2013 2:44 PM, Alfred Molon wrote:

> I'm having the same problem. Not only with Android phone emails, but
> also with certain Outlook emails containing attachments.
> Here is an example of how such emails start:
>
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-
> com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
> xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word"
> xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml"
> xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40" Bᅵ XY ?Bᅵ Y] H
> Y\]Z]ᅵHï¿œï¿œÛ [ᅵ
> U \ H?content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
> <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12 (filtered medium)">
> <style><!--
> /* Font Definitions */
> @font-face
> {font-family:"Cambria Math";
> panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
>

In the center of that forest, do we see:

"text/html; charset=utf-8"

As we all know, Eudora does not natively support UTF-8,
neither for sending nor receiving messages.

Have you tried comparing results with and without
"Use Microsoft's viewer" check-marked in the "Viewing Mail" options?

The "Greek Message Viewer" plugin by Brana Bujenovic
<http://www.drivehq.com/web/brana/plugins.htm>
<http://www.drivehq.com/web/brana/plugins.htm#viewer>
is able to display true UTF-8, if you follow the instructions
(and disable UTF8ISO, if you also have the latter plugin,
by renaming utf8iso.dll to utf8isodll.hide)

Brana's plugin has two tool buttons which you can add
to your main toolbar, one for viewing as plain text
and one for viewing as HTML. It may be necessary
to manually select the character encoding again each time,
in the independent display window which appears as a
separate Windows task after you invoke the plugin:

"View" > "Character Encoding" > "Unicode (UTF-8)"

Different "use Microsoft's viewer" settings
may also affect this plugin, so try it both ways.

--

Alfred Molon

unread,
Sep 6, 2013, 3:56:48 PM9/6/13
to
In article <5227428D...@nomail.invalid>, jhme...@nomail.invalid
says...
>
> On 9/2/2013 2:44 PM, Alfred Molon wrote:
>
> > I'm having the same problem. Not only with Android phone emails, but
> > also with certain Outlook emails containing attachments.
> > Here is an example of how such emails start:
> >
> > Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-
> > com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
> > xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word"
> > xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml"
> > xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40" B XY ?B Y] H
> > Y\]Z] H ÛÛ [
I tried all of that and it didn't work. Here is another example of email
(got it from booking.com - it's just the first part):

Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML
4.01 Transitional//EN" [ ?? XY
<style type="text/css" KKB??KO?
ÜÝ [ O???
Ú XY ?? ?Ù H Ý [ OH??Û
Y?@mily: sans-serif" [YÈ [ H ?ÛÚÚ[?Ë?ÛÛH Û? [?H Ý [ ?\Àervations"
src="http://r.bstatic.com/static/img/b25logo/booking.com_logo_small.jpg" />
<p>
Hallo Alfred Molon,
<p>
Wir haben Ihre Bewertung f&uuml;r 5footway.inn Project Boat Quay auf
unserer Webseite hinzugef&uuml;gt. Unter dem folgenden Link k&ouml;nnen
Sie Ihre Bewertung ansehen:
<p><a href="http://www.booking.com/hotel/sg/fivefootway-inn-project-
boat-quay.de.html X M ?[\ ØZY LÌ

M
??[\ ÜšY M€44888925
&amp;label=review_am&amp;et=UmFuZG9tSVYkc2RlIyh9YYhSM+At9JcDxMqtYLKPowvM
YD/SfGIdEbBoUTEfJ88Fw9caMZJ7wiPfiFKcCme2ksYAFG2Zs9SKvv7r5hNSCPDDhxW//ge4
VSjWMvOUU64G05piPTkzz13fWsWvz0w9KgIGDMVrkZNmSe0lYBxD+vvTE6h8bzv6iw==" Z
?H €ewertung f&uuml;r 5footway.inn Project Boat Quay</a><p>
Sie k&ouml;nnen <a
Message has been deleted
Message has been deleted

John H Meyers

unread,
Sep 7, 2013, 7:31:06 AM9/7/13
to
On 9/6/2013 2:56 PM, Alfred Molon wrote:

> I tried all of that and it didn't work.

Both "I tried all that" and "it didn't work"
are lacking in any useful detail.

> Here is another example of email
> (got it from booking.com - it's just the first part):
>
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML

That is not a sample of _original message source_
so it's as just as useless as before.

Try some other email client -- hey, what about Thunderbird?
They have their own forums, too, for general amusement.

--

Alfred Molon

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Sep 8, 2013, 4:15:32 AM9/8/13
to
In article <87nk29harbqft697h...@4ax.com>,
wlf...@ix.netcom.com says...
> ADDENDUM: I highly doubt that booking.com is using Android phones to
> send such messages -- but I could be wrong... <G>

Yes. The problem exists with
1. Android phones,
2. some websites such as booking.com for instance and
3. some emails with Outlook with several attachments.

Alfred Molon

unread,
Sep 8, 2013, 4:18:42 AM9/8/13
to
In article <522B0E7...@nomail.invalid>, jhme...@nomail.invalid
says...
>
> On 9/6/2013 2:56 PM, Alfred Molon wrote:
>
> > I tried all of that and it didn't work.
>
> Both "I tried all that" and "it didn't work"
> are lacking in any useful detail.

I tried all the suggestions that you made, but was unable to transform
the message into something readable. Meaning that email stayed garbled
and unreadable. What more detail do you need?

> > Here is another example of email
> > (got it from booking.com - it's just the first part):
> >
> > Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML
>
> That is not a sample of _original message source_
> so it's as just as useless as before.
>
> Try some other email client -- hey, what about Thunderbird?
> They have their own forums, too, for general amusement.

Why should I use Thunderbird? Eudora is much faster.
Message has been deleted

Alfred Molon

unread,
Sep 8, 2013, 3:23:46 PM9/8/13
to
In article <ds6p295je1h4rg806...@4ax.com>,
wlf...@ix.netcom.com says...

> To obtain an UNMODIFIED copy of the message, including all MIME parts,
> etc. in order to then examine it for what it may have that is giving Eudora
> fits. All headers, not just those Eudora chose to retain; various
> representations if multiple formats were sent (HTML and plain text --
> Eudora tends to think it can render the HTML and deletes the plain text
> version -- then runs into something that is not pure HTML).

Are you using Eudora and do you never run into these kind of problems? I
wonder if it's Eudora or my installation of Eudora which is causing the
probems.

BTW, you don't need Thunderbird to get the unmodified copy of the
message. For that the Magic Mail Monitor is sufficient. It allows you to
view emails in a text editor with the Quick View feature.
Message has been deleted

John H Meyers

unread,
Sep 11, 2013, 3:06:22 AM9/11/13
to
On 9/8/2013 3:18 AM, Alfred Molon wrote:

> I tried all the suggestions that you made, but was unable to transform
> the message into something readable. Meaning that email stayed garbled
> and unreadable. What more detail do you need?

No matter how many times we write "original source,"
it's apparently being posted in invisible ink,
since no example of even a single such message's "source"
has yet been displayed, while such expressions as
"what more detail do you need" continue to be posted instead,
even though you also say you _can_ get the original source.

If you're just too shy to post even one example,
you can save any true original source to disk,
name the file anything.eml, and open that file
using Thunderbird, Outlook Express, or other programs.

If the file is renamed anything.mim,
then any copy of Winzip can also parse its individual parts.

Finally, we can test-feed original source
(possibly modified to fix a problem) to Eudora,
by putting a copy into its "spool" folder as an "RCV" file.

> I wonder whether it's Eudora or my installation of Eudora
> which is causing the problems.

How come the thought that "the _sender_ could be the cause"
hasn't yet arisen? Various examples of mail have been seen,
over time, which either have broken headers or violate the
defined internet message standards. Some programs defensively
correct some potential errors, but Eudora tends to be a
"fussy eater," and won't touch certain bad-tasting food.

In one recent case I managed to _send_ something using Eudora
which Eudora itself could receive correctly, yet it knocked Gmail
for a loop -- you never know for sure what some bad input will
lead to, until you put it under the microscope and find out for sure
what's swimming around inside.

Let's hope it was all spam,
then it doesn't even matter what it was,
which at this rate we are not going to find out anyway.

--

Brana Bujenovic

unread,
Sep 12, 2013, 4:51:53 AM9/12/13
to
Alfred Molon <alfred...@yahoo.com> wrote in
news:MPG.2c9451edf...@news.supernews.com:
>>
>> The "Greek Message Viewer" plugin by Brana Bujenovic
>> <http://www.drivehq.com/web/brana/plugins.htm>
>> <http://www.drivehq.com/web/brana/plugins.htm#viewer>
>> is able to display true UTF-8, if you follow the instructions
>> (and disable UTF8ISO, if you also have the latter plugin,
>> by renaming utf8iso.dll to utf8isodll.hide)
>>
>> Brana's plugin has two tool buttons which you can add
>> to your main toolbar, one for viewing as plain text
>> and one for viewing as HTML. It may be necessary
>> to manually select the character encoding again each time,
>> in the independent display window which appears as a
>> separate Windows task after you invoke the plugin:
>>
>> "View" > "Character Encoding" > "Unicode (UTF-8)"
>>
>> Different "use Microsoft's viewer" settings
>> may also affect this plugin, so try it both ways.
>
> I tried all of that and it didn't work. Here is another example of
> email (got it from booking.com - it's just the first part):

For Base 64, it's:
1. Select Base 64 encoded text.
2. Hit: Selection/Decode -> Base 64

Alfred Molon

unread,
Sep 13, 2013, 3:38:20 PM9/13/13
to
In article <5230166E...@nomail.invalid>, jhme...@nomail.invalid
says...
> No matter how many times we write "original source,"

You should have written "Please post an example of such an email in
original source". Had you done that, it would have been clear what you
meant.

I don't receive such corrupted messages every day, therefore I don't
have the an original source available right now.
But next time I get such a message I'll try to save the original source
and will see if I can post it here.
Even if the NSA reads everything, you are not supposed to publish emails
in the usenet without the permission of the sender.

Marc-Andr...@mus.ulaval.ca

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Mar 12, 2015, 1:21:58 PM3/12/15
to
I have started having problems with messages received with Eudora 7.1 recently. The problem started to happen a few weeks ago in messages sent from groups or forums that had always been received perfectly. The blah-blah-blah option shows that they are encoded with UTF-8: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8". The problem is that URLs contained in the message are completely mangled with garbage characters. Here is an example of how URLs may appear, and this obviously invalidates them. Some characters display as squares in Eudora.

http://affairesuniversitaires.us1.list-manage.com/track/click OL̘ŽM ÍÍ
˜Ù ÍXØÎ
€98d&id=7d32a746fe&e=6dbf68eed5

These characters that have nothing to do with the "é" that replace the "é" in so many messages sent by Apple or Android devices and/or encoded with UTF-8. This specific problem can usually be solved by using the UTF8->ISO plugin by Daniel Kuhn <http://www.windharp.de/software/utf8iso.htm>.
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