thunderbird attachments
Christopher Wensink
with an attached .STEP file, the file association seems to get
misinterpreted, and when trying to open the file directly from the
e-mail the system thinks that the file is a txt file. We have
duplicated this issue with two different .STEP files used internally
here. If you Double click the file to open it directly, the .STEP file
program (Solidview Pro RP in this case) opens a file from the user's
%TEMP% folder and the name of the file as an appended .txt on the end of
the file.
The interesting thing is, if you detach the attachment and save it to
somewhere like Documents or your desktop, then open it from there, the
file opens in Solidview Pro/RP without any issue, and maintains the
origional extension. When sending the email out the file association
and icon looks correct, but if you look in the sent folder after sending
it on the same PC, the icon changes to be a text file.
Does anyone know why this issue would be happening or what would cause this?
This is happening on Thunderbird 68.
--
Christopher Wensink
IS Administrator
Five Star Plastics, Inc
1339 Continental Drive
Eau Claire, WI 54701
Office: 715-831-1682
Mobile: 715-563-3112
Fax: 715-831-6075
cwen...@five-star-plastics.com
www.five-star-plastics.com
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Joel Baltazor
We had some oddities a while back regarding .dxf files where they were
interpreted as .txt files in Thunderbird. DXF files on the machine
opened normally everywhere else, but not in TB.
When looking at the source of the email message(s) we noticed that the
"Content-Type" in the email was set to "text/plain" for the .dxf attachment.
We fixed this by setting the registry key/value on the machine in question:
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.dxf]
"Content Type"="application/dxf"
My notes imply that "Content Type" registry value either did not exist
or had a blank value. For us this did not fix old messages, just NEW
messages that came in after the registry value had been set (when
testing make sure to send a new message, not open an old one). Perhaps
it would be worth a look/try on your machine for .STEP files. Maybe it
is it the same kind of issue that we had.
-Joel
On 10/6/2020 10:40 AM, Christopher Wensink wrote:
> We discovered an issue recently where when we try to send out an
> e-mail with an attached .STEP file, the file association seems to get
> misinterpreted, and when trying to open the file directly from the
> e-mail the system thinks that the file is a txt file. We have
> duplicated this issue with two different .STEP files used internally
> here. If you Double click the file to open it directly, the .STEP
> file program (Solidview Pro RP in this case) opens a file from the
> user's %TEMP% folder and the name of the file as an appended .txt on
> the end of the file.
>
> The interesting thing is, if you detach the attachment and save it to
> somewhere like Documents or your desktop, then open it from there, the
> file opens in Solidview Pro/RP without any issue, and maintains the
> origional extension. When sending the email out the file association
> and icon looks correct, but if you look in the sent folder after
> sending it on the same PC, the icon changes to be a text file.
>
> Does anyone know why this issue would be happening or what would cause
> this?
>
> This is happening on Thunderbird 68.
>
_____________________________________________________________________
Christopher Wensink
Chris
--
Christopher Wensink
IS Administrator
Five Star Plastics, Inc
1339 Continental Drive
Eau Claire, WI 54701
Office: 715-831-1682
Mobile: 715-563-3112
Fax: 715-831-6075
cwen...@five-star-plastics.com
www.five-star-plastics.com
_____________________________________________________________________
Christopher Wensink
and there were not any entries that I could see. I did find an entry in
the registry logged in as administrator on the PC, I exported the key,
then logged back in as that user, then imported the key succesfully,
then I tried double clicking on the .step file directliy from
Thunderbird, and that worked - the first time. The second and every
time after I repeated the same steps and from the second time on, .txt
is appended to the attachment name, and that extension is passed onto
the .step file reader on that computer.
When opening the file directly from the attachment, it copies the file
to c:\users\<user>\AppData\Local\Temp\<filename>.
When the file is in the attachment the name is simply <file>.STEP, but
after it's opened in the 3D reader file it's opened as <file>.STEP.txt
in c:\users\<user>\AppData\Local\Temp\<file>.STEP.txt
Each additional time you try to open the file another file is made as
c:\users\<user>\AppData\Local\Temp\<filename>.STEP-1.txt, then -2 and so on.
the .STEP file is an easy to read ascii file type, and it CAN be read by
notepad or atom or any other text editor but it also can be opened with
a 3D part file viewer like solidview or solidworks.
The problem starts because when opening from Thunderbird, solidview
opens c:\users\<user>\AppData\Local\Temp\<filename>.STEP.txt nothing
appears in Solidview other than the text name of the file, the file is
not interpreted correctly because of the apended .txt extension that is
added.
This is a major issue for us as a Manufacturing company doing injection
molding, 3D printing and Cast Urethane models as we work with 3d part
files all the time.
Other file formats are not causing this problem, .stl works fine, .obj
works fine, .sldprt files work fine, it's just STEP files, that are
causing this issue.
Please help.
Chris
On 10/7/2020 7:58 AM, Joel Baltazor wrote:
--
Christopher Wensink
IS Administrator
Five Star Plastics, Inc
1339 Continental Drive
Eau Claire, WI 54701
Office: 715-831-1682
Mobile: 715-563-3112
Fax: 715-831-6075
cwen...@five-star-plastics.com
www.five-star-plastics.com
_____________________________________________________________________
Joel Baltazor
The -1, -2, etc sounds like normal behavior when opening the same named
file more than one time (if you clear these from the %TEMP% folder, it
would go back to the file name without multiple versions for the first
time and then would start to increment again).
I'm no expert, but your description sounds very much like what I had
mentioned: Thunderbird doesn't know what a .step file is, so it assumes
that it is a .txt file (I think because in the registry, there is no
"Content Type" value for .step files in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT or similar
locations in the user are of HKEY_CURRENT_USER).
When you look at the source of a message with a .step file (Ctrl+U),
what do you see for the "Content-Type" for the .step attachment? (On my
machine without a .step file reader, my Thunderbird thinks it is a
"text/plain" and also opens it with a .txt file attachment) and indeed I
have no HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.step Key or Values present.
I think the user not having any .step file information in their registry
is OK, if information is not found in the context of the user, I think
it searches the (system-level) HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.
Does the information in the registry that you found/copied have a
"Content Type" defined for .step files? If so, would you share what
it's value is?
On that same note, since .stl & .obj files work, would it be worth
looking to see if they have a "Content Type" Registry Value in
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.stl (and/or .obj).
Perhaps it would work to compare the values of .step vs. .stl and see
if you "fill in the blanks" for the .step file, using the .stl as a
"template", then maybe it will start working properly?
(remember to send a brand new email for each test - maybe also
close/reopen Thunderbird to be sure the TB picks up any changes)
Good Luck,
Joel
On 10/9/2020 10:23 AM, Christopher Wensink wrote:
Matt Harris
--------------4B08C232A03DA38E005D9EDC Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; name="Generic Step File.STEP" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="Generic Step File.STEP"
The internet uses MIME type to describe MIME data, not file extensions. I suggest you contact the folks defining the file format and ask them (International Standards Organization) to register it like they should already have done. Registration procedures are included in the link below.
Registered type can be found here http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml
A Mozilla Developer Network document discussing the topic is located here https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Basics_of_HTTP/MIME_types
Unfortunately the only operating system in widespread use that uses file extension much is Windows. AutoCad files are registered. But the standards organization apparently did not manage registration of their standard as a standard media file format. I really think that is funny really, and they have left those complying with their standard battling a system that has not heard of the standard because they dropped the ball.
Matt
Christopher Wensink
-----------------
I took a look at the email envelope, and the file name with extension is correctly stored in the message, however the MIME type is set to "text/plain" :
--------------C56099FD353A2013535B715F
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8;
name="106-0159-765.STEP"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment;
filename="106-0159-765.STEP"
I would think that should be "application/step" instead ( https://www.sitepoint.com/mime-types-complete-list/ ). But even the email I sent to myself with the .STEP file extension was given the "text/plain" MIME type. It might be that Thunderbird just does not recognize that file extension.
--------------------------
Is there a a plugin that will allow you to override the default application associated with attachments by file extension instead of MIME type?
Chris
Joel Baltazor
Here's how I think it works: When sending a mail, Thunderbird tries to figure out what the attachment (mime) type is. On Windows I think it does this by looking in the registry. If it doesn't find what it needs in the registry, I think it defaults the mime-type to text/plain. I think this causes the a Thunderbird that receives this email to behave as you have describe (opening it as a .txt file). So I think fixing it on the sending side could be a fix.
So as a test, add a registry key value:
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.step]
"Content Type"="application/step"
Then open Thunderbird (make sure it is closed when modifying the registry) and send a brand new message with a .step file attachment. Does this new message correctly NOT open as a .txt file?
-Joel