Multi-part MIME problems

Multi-part MIME problems

[Graham Todd]

I seem to recall this being reported previously but I've had spotty
connectivity of late and haven't searched the ding archive (I'm on
ADSL and have had lots of fun switching from DHCP to "PPP over
ethernet").  


Pterodactyl Gnus v0.98 on XEmacs 20.4 (i386-pc-linux)

I've been getting multi-part MIME messages with images from the
Netscape mail program (Win95) that I've had trouble reading them.
Message containing images and documents encoded this way are
problematic - if the same message is sent with the files "uuencoded"
and "attached" (instead of MIME) it seems to work.

I copied the two offending messages (they're not too personal I hope
;-) to:

ftp://ftp.equilibrio.qc.ca/pub/GnusStuff/

If anyone wants to read them. If I download a message and do the
following:

~$ echo "From nobody Sat Nov 20 15:27:25 1999" >> Mail/Somefolder
~$ cat MIME-message-1 >> Mail/Somefolder

this puts the message in a mailfolder where I can read it. Reading the
folder with Pine I see the message and all the attached images and I
can launch the viewer of my choice without a problem. Pine shows the
message size as ~ 380k.

In Gnus the message appears in the folder's Summary Buffer but shows
the size as 5 megs.  The attachements don't show up in the Article
buffer when I read the message though. I thought perhaps the message
was just too big (the actual message file for MIME-message-1 is ~380 k
but as noted Gnus seems to "expand" its size to 5 megabytes in the
group buffer). However a smaller message prepared in the same way has
the same problem.

I can read the message using Netscape's mail reader under Unix. In
fact in Gnus I use "B c" and copy the message to an IMAP folder on my
system and then read the message in that folder with Netscape's mail
reader. Netscape too seems confused about the size but will read the
message in any case.  The message shows one size in the folder list
"buffer" in Netscape and is much bigger when decoded and read in the
message "buffer".

Something strange is going on and I don't know what it is but I
thought it might be worth reporting.

-- 
G. Todd

Re: Multi-part MIME problems

[Shenghuo ZHU]

>>>>> "Graham" == Graham Todd <gtodd@yorku.ca> writes:

[...]


Graham> I copied the two offending messages (they're not too personal I hope
Graham> ;-) to:

Graham> ftp://ftp.equilibrio.qc.ca/pub/GnusStuff/

Graham> If anyone wants to read them. If I download a message and do the
Graham> following:

Graham> ~$ echo "From nobody Sat Nov 20 15:27:25 1999" >> Mail/Somefolder
Graham> ~$ cat MIME-message-1 >> Mail/Somefolder

Graham> this puts the message in a mailfolder where I can read it. Reading the
Graham> folder with Pine I see the message and all the attached images and I
Graham> can launch the viewer of my choice without a problem. Pine shows the
Graham> message size as ~ 380k.

Graham> In Gnus the message appears in the folder's Summary Buffer but shows
Graham> the size as 5 megs.  The attachements don't show up in the Article
Graham> buffer when I read the message though. I thought perhaps the message
Graham> was just too big (the actual message file for MIME-message-1 is ~380 k
Graham> but as noted Gnus seems to "expand" its size to 5 megabytes in the
Graham> group buffer). However a smaller message prepared in the same way has
Graham> the same problem.

[...]

By default, Gnus report the number of lines not the number of
characters. What you saw is 5326 lines not 5 megs.

$ wc MIME-message-1
   5360    5669  382907 MIME-message-1

The attachments don't show up because the content-type is
multipart/related, however W3 does not render it well. You can type
`C-d' on the summary, an ephemeral group will show you all the parts
well.


-- 
Shenghuo