Incoming text appears as attachment

[fred...@yahoo.com]

Many times when I receive a text only email, it comes in as an attachment
and the message body is blank. The attachment icon shows the name
"attachment" with no file type. I am able to save the attachment as a text
file and read it, but I shouldn't have to go through this step. Is there
something I can do to make the message appear as text in the email instead
of an attachment?

[gabor]

View --> Display Attachments Inline

Is it checked?

[fred...@yahoo.com]

Yes, it is checked

[fred...@yahoo.com]

yes, it is checked

[clay]

I used to get this with CAD files from some customers. 2-3 meg .dxf
textfile open in the preview pane will surely slow things down.
If I uncheck view attachments inline, the text would still be in the
body but the attachment would also appear at the bottom for saving.
It has something to do with Thunderbird not being able to associate the
file extension (or something..?)
There's ways to correct it so TB knows how to handle the file but I
don't recall what it is atm. Maybe someone will come along and remind us.

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[fred...@yahoo.com]

On 16-Jan-2008, clay <cl...@mation.com> wrote:

> > On 16-Jan-2008, gabor <ga...@alacron.com> wrote:
> >
> >> > Many times when I receive a text only email, it comes in as an
> >> > attachment
> >> > and the message body is blank. The attachment icon shows the name
> >> > "attachment" with no file type. I am able to save the attachment as
> >> > a
> >> > text
> >> > file and read it, but I shouldn't have to go through this step. Is
> >> > there
> >> > something I can do to make the message appear as text in the email
> >> > instead
> >> > of an attachment?
> >>
> >> View --> Display Attachments Inline
> >>
> >> Is it checked?
> >
> > yes, it is checked
>
> I used to get this with CAD files from some customers. 2-3 meg .dxf
> textfile open in the preview pane will surely slow things down.
> If I uncheck view attachments inline, the text would still be in the
> body but the attachment would also appear at the bottom for saving.
> It has something to do with Thunderbird not being able to associate the
> file extension (or something..?)
> There's ways to correct it so TB knows how to handle the file but I
> don't recall what it is atm. Maybe someone will come along and remind us.

Part of the problem seems to be that the attachment has no file type.
I add the ".txt" when I save it.

[David Pyles]

When the attachment has no extension, or has an extension that it
doesn't know how to display, Thunderbird doesn't know what to do with
it, so only displays it as an attachment.
Dave Pyles

[fred...@yahoo.com]

This still doesn't explain why a plain text message would be converted to an
attachment.

[Steven L.]

Try creating and sending a plain text email message to yourself. Then
go to the "Sent" folder and see what the message looked like when it got
sent. Is the text already an attachment? Did you receive this test
message properly?

--
Steven L.
Email: sdli...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.

[goodwin]

On 1/16/2008 2:45 PM fred...@yahoo.com scribbled:

Is it email from an M$ client like doubtlook?

[David Pyles]

Sure it does. Thunderbird uses extensions to determine how to handle
attachments (See Tools>Options>attachments>View & Edit Actions). If the
plain text file was sent as an attachment (as opposed to being copied
and pasted into the body of the email) and the attachment didn't have an
extension Thunderbird would not know that it was a text file and would
not include it inline, but as an attachment.

It's pretty clear to me.
Dave Pyles

[Ron K.]

David Pyles keyboarded, On 1/16/2008 7:38 PM :

No, Tbird does not use extensions to determine how it will handle
attachments. It expects that valid MIME types are associated with the
Content ID. When the senders mail client botches that action, even
text/plain content will shown as an attachment if its MIME type is sent
as application/octet-stream. The clue to the sender messing things up is
the OP's comment that he has to append the .txt extension when he saves
the file.

The reason Tbird has the problem, but not Outhouse Exploder or
Overlerker is they look at extension name and ignore MIME because
Windows screws up file associations badly in it's files management. I
know of people who send zip files where Windows sets the type as 'zip
file' when the valid MIME is 'application/zip-compressed'.

--
Ron K.
Who is General Failure, and why is he searching my HDD?
Kernel Restore reported BSOD use by Major Error to msg the enemy!

[fred...@yahoo.com]

OK, that works. Both the "Sent" folder message and the received email were
normal.
The text appears in the message area and there was no attachment icon.

[ovidiu]

does this help?
https://nic-nac-project.org/~kaosmos/index-en.html#fixattview
https://nic-nac-project.org/~kaosmos/index-en.html#nowrongmimetype
they are in the same page..

[Steven L.]

Then are you absolutely sure that the offending messages you're having
trouble with were indeed *sent* as plain text, rather than text
attachments in the first place?

I suggest you contact whoever sent you these messages, and ask them just
what they are doing. Maybe they really were generated as attachments
which you didn't know about.

As you have probably read in the other posts by David Pyles and Ron K.
by now, some other mail readers do a different job of handling text
attachments--they look at the file extension (.txt) and assume it's
text. So maybe your senders are assuming that your email handler can
deal with text attachments with a .txt extension.

[fred...@yahoo.com]

On 17-Jan-2008, "Steven L." <sdli...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net> wrote:

> > OK, that works. Both the "Sent" folder message and the received email
> > were
> > normal.
> > The text appears in the message area and there was no attachment icon.
>
> Then are you absolutely sure that the offending messages you're having
> trouble with were indeed *sent* as plain text, rather than text
> attachments in the first place?
>
> I suggest you contact whoever sent you these messages, and ask them just
> what they are doing. Maybe they really were generated as attachments
> which you didn't know about.
>
> As you have probably read in the other posts by David Pyles and Ron K.
> by now, some other mail readers do a different job of handling text
> attachments--they look at the file extension (.txt) and assume it's
> text. So maybe your senders are assuming that your email handler can
> deal with text attachments with a .txt extension.

I guess it is possible the messages were sent as attachments. This
particular set
was sent from a vender and included download instructions, passwords, etc.