Re: unreadable message

Re: unreadable message

[Alexey Pustyntsev]

Hi Reiner!

Sorry, I overlooked your message, thus I am late.

>
> Where do you look at the unreadable, "encrypted" message?

If I am not mistaken all that happened in the very same buffer where I
type my replies. That's ~/News/drafts/drafts/1, or something like
that. That was really strange. There was nothing unusual in my email,
excluding may be a very long url with lots of "%" characters that I
copied from my web browser (FF). Another thing I should probably
mention is that the weirdness seems to occur when emails are rather
long. I do recall this strange encryption happened when the size of my
emails exceeded the average size. 

That's (a small) excerpt to show how it all looks. Not bad, eh ? :)
The origianl cryptic message is may be five times as long as this bit.  

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
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>
>> It looked as if it had been encrypted and, of course, none of us
>> could read it. That happend to my Gnus a couple of times
>> recently. The last message is still in my outbox. I wonder if anyone
>> has experienced anything similar? Please, share your thoughts.
>
> Bye, Reiner.
> -- 
>        ,,,
>       (o o)
> ---ooO-(_)-Ooo---  |  PGP key available  |  http://rsteib.home.pages.de/
>
>

If you don't mind, please, guide me where to start the checkup. 

-- 
Rgds
Alexey

Today is Prickle-Prickle, the 55th day of Bureaucracy in the YOLD 3174

Re: unreadable message

[Reiner Steib]

On Wed, Oct 01 2008, Alexey Pustyntsev wrote:

>> Where do you look at the unreadable, "encrypted" message?
>
> If I am not mistaken all that happened in the very same buffer where I
> type my replies. That's ~/News/drafts/drafts/1, or something like
> that. That was really strange. 

Are you saying it happened *during* composing a message, *before*
sending it?  If so, I have no idea why this might happen.

But the excerpt below looks like an archived (outgoing) article:

> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
>
> tdGCINCx0L7Qu9GM0YjQvtC5INC/0LvQsNGB0YIg0LIg0YHQvtC30L3QsNC90LjQuCDQvdCw0YDQ
[...]
> There was nothing unusual in my email, excluding may be a very long
> url with lots of "%" characters that I copied from my web browser
> (FF). Another thing I should probably mention is that the weirdness
> seems to occur when emails are rather long. I do recall this strange
> encryption happened when the size of my emails exceeded the average
> size.

Using "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64" (what you called
"encrypted") happens when there are many 8bit characters
(`mm-qp-or-base64').  There's nothing wrong with that.

> After the weird message was sent, I can look at it in my outbox
> (nnml:outbox) only.    

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo---  |  PGP key available  |  http://rsteib.home.pages.de/

Re: unreadable message

[Adam Sjøgren]

On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 23:09:35 +1000, Alexey wrote:

> However, unlike the Outlook, my Gnus version (5.10) displays the
> message incorrectly.

You should probably mention that this is in the digests you have chosen
to receive of the mailinglist.

(I don't know if the digests are constructed correctly when it comes to
charsets and encoding; I never use digests.)


  Best regards,

-- 
 "I need someone to throw blue sky at me"                     Adam Sjøgren
                                                         asjo@koldfront.dk

Re: unreadable message

[Alexey Pustyntsev]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8, Size: 876 bytes --]

 
Hello Reiner!

I'd like to thank you and Adam for your collaborative effort to keep
Gnus clean and bug-free.

You are right, this message does not show what I am talking
about. However, unlike the Outlook, my Gnus version (5.10) displays
the message incorrectly. This is how it looks (Adam has my screenshot).

> ПривеÑ‚!
> Кажется у Ñ‚ебя чеÑ‚о не Ñ‚о с мÑ‹лом
>

I think I should conduct a good test locally and send many messages to
some address at my network. As soon as I spot a proper 'unreadable'
message, I will post it here, including all the details.     

Reiner Steib writes:

> FWIW, this base64 article is displayed correctly with Outlook.
>
> Bye, Reiner.
> -- 
>        ,,,
>       (o o)
> ---ooO-(_)-Ooo---  |  PGP key available  |  http://rsteib.home.pages.de/
>


-- 
Rgds
Alexey

Re: unreadable message

[Reiner Steib]

On Wed, Dec 03 2008, Reiner Steib wrote:

> ,----
> | From rsteib@localhost Wed Dec 03 07:59:09 PM 2008
> | From: rsteib
> | Subject: base64
> | Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2008 07:59:09 PM +0200
> | Mime-Version: 1.0
> | Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
> | Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
> | 
> | DQrQn9GA0LjQstC10YIhDQoNCtCt0YLQvtGCIE1VQSDQvdCw0LfRi9Cy0LDQtdGC0YHRjyBHbnVz
> | LCDRgNCw0LfQsdC40YDQsNC10LzRgdGPLiDQmiDRgdC+0LbQsNC70LXQvdC40Y4sINGN0YLQviDQ
> | vNC+0LbQvdC+INGD0LLQuNC00LXRgtGMDQrQvdC1INCy0YHQtdCz0LTQsC4g0J3QtSDQstGB0Y/Q
> | utC40Lkg0YLQtdC60YHRgiDQstGL0LfRi9Cy0LDQtdGCINGC0LDQutC+0LUg0L/QvtCy0LXQtNC1
> | 0L3QuNC1LiANCg0KQWxleCA8dGhlcm1hbEBoaWRkZW4uY29tPiB3cml0ZXM6DQoNCj4g0J/RgNC4
> | 0LLQtdGCIQ0KPiDQmtCw0LbQtdGC0YHRjyDRgyDRgtC10LHRjyDRh9C10YLQviDQvdC1INGC0L4g
> | 0YEg0LzRi9C70L7QvA0KPg0KDQotLSANClJnZHMNCkFsZXhleQ0K
> | 
> `----
>
> The displayed article look like this:
>
> ,----
> | From: rsteib
> | Subject: base64
> | Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2008 07:59:09 PM +0200
> | 
> | Привет!
> | 
> | Этот MUA называется Gnus, разбираемся. К сожалению, это можно увидеть
> | не всегда. Не всякий текст вызывает такое поведение. 
> | 
> | Alex <thermal@hidden.com> writes:
> | 
> | > Привет!
> | > Кажется у тебя чето не то с мылом
> | >
> | 
> | -- 
> | Rgds
> | Alexey
> `----

FWIW, this base64 article is displayed correctly with Outlook.

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo---  |  PGP key available  |  http://rsteib.home.pages.de/

Re: unreadable message

[Alexey Pustyntsev]

Hello!

Well, the last message seems to be OK. Perhaps, I should wait for
another one, because people _do_ receive garbled messages from
me occasionally. That's not a joke. The above message is a complaint,
actually. 

-- 
Rgds
Alexey

Today is Boomtime, the 45th day of The Aftermath in the YOLD 31742

Re: unreadable message

[Alexey Pustyntsev]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 137 bytes --]

Alex <hidden@mail.ru> writes:

> Привет!
> Кажется у тебя чето не то с мылом
>

-- 
Rgds
Alexey

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/plain, Size: 161 bytes --]

_______________________________________________
info-gnus-english mailing list
info-gnus-english@gnu.org
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnus-english

Re: unreadable message

[Adam Sjøgren]

On Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:26:05 +1000, Alexey wrote:

> I think, I've spotted another one. This message is complete (not an
> excerpt).

Please show the entire message, headers and everything.


  Best regards,

-- 
 "If I succeed it seems to me                                 Adam Sjøgren
  That we should tell it to people like me"              asjo@koldfront.dk

Re: unreadable message

[Alexey Pustyntsev]

Hello!

I think, I've spotted another one. This message is complete (not an excerpt).

DQrQn9GA0LjQstC10YIhDQoNCtCt0YLQvtGCIE1VQSDQvdCw0LfRi9Cy0LDQtdGC0YHRjyBHbnVz
LCDRgNCw0LfQsdC40YDQsNC10LzRgdGPLiDQmiDRgdC+0LbQsNC70LXQvdC40Y4sINGN0YLQviDQ
vNC+0LbQvdC+INGD0LLQuNC00LXRgtGMDQrQvdC1INCy0YHQtdCz0LTQsC4g0J3QtSDQstGB0Y/Q
utC40Lkg0YLQtdC60YHRgiDQstGL0LfRi9Cy0LDQtdGCINGC0LDQutC+0LUg0L/QvtCy0LXQtNC1
0L3QuNC1LiANCg0KQWxleCA8dGhlcm1hbEBoaWRkZW4uY29tPiB3cml0ZXM6DQoNCj4g0J/RgNC4
0LLQtdGCIQ0KPiDQmtCw0LbQtdGC0YHRjyDRgyDRgtC10LHRjyDRh9C10YLQviDQvdC1INGC0L4g
0YEg0LzRi9C70L7QvA0KPg0KDQotLSANClJnZHMNCkFsZXhleQ0K

Please, give me a hint, which functions (including those written in
C, if any) are used by Gnus to deal with this encoding/decoding
business. It's time to look at the source code. 

-- 
Rgds
Alexey

Today is Setting Orange, the 33rd day of The Aftermath in the YOLD 3174

Re: unreadable message

[Alexey Pustyntsev]

Hello Adam!

Thank you very much.

> Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:29:42 +0100
> From: asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sj?gren )
> Subject: Re: unreadable message
> To: info-gnus-english@gnu.org
> Message-ID: <87d4gucfrt.fsf@topper.koldfront.dk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
> On Sun, 09 Nov 2008 05:22:17 +1000, Alexey wrote:
>
>>> I am not sure this is a bug in Gnus - from what you have presented so
>>> far, it sounds like lack of MIME support in your friends' programmes.
>
>> This is very unlikely. Usually, famous web mail services (e.g. google,
>> yahoo, yandex, hotmail) have proper MIME support. However, my Gnus
>> produces these unreadable messages, some of which I cannot read myself
>> even after decoding, as I already said. 
>
> If you have one of these unreadable messages (that does not contain
> anything secret you shouldn't reveal), I suggest you post it to the
> list, so developers can look at it.

I know. Yes, of course, I will post it. It's just happen occasionally.      

> Saying "sometimes it doesn't work" doesn't give them much to work on :-)

> I won't say you're wrong, but an example would make your case much more
> convincing :-)

Absolutely. 

-- 
Rgds
Alexey

Today is Pungenday, the 31st day of The Aftermath in the YOLD 3174

Re: unreadable message

[Adam Sjøgren]

On Sun, 09 Nov 2008 05:22:17 +1000, Alexey wrote:

>> I am not sure this is a bug in Gnus - from what you have presented so
>> far, it sounds like lack of MIME support in your friends' programmes.

> This is very unlikely. Usually, famous web mail services (e.g. google,
> yahoo, yandex, hotmail) have proper MIME support. However, my Gnus
> produces these unreadable messages, some of which I cannot read myself
> even after decoding, as I already said. 

If you have one of these unreadable messages (that does not contain
anything secret you shouldn't reveal), I suggest you post it to the
list, so developers can look at it.

Saying "sometimes it doesn't work" doesn't give them much to work on :-)

>> ,----[ C-h v mm-content-transfer-encoding-defaults RET ]

>> You can change the value of this variable if you don't want Gnus to
>> choose between quoted-printable and base64 automatically.

> Well, that's all fine, but what's really happening is that users
> may type cyrillic (utf8), hit (C-c C-c) and the result may be either
> readable or unreadable or readable after decoding.

Please show us an an example.

> We don't know that beforehand and I think we need not because the MUA
> is expected to do that consistently. If it doesn't, I presume that to
> be a bug.

I would expect Gnus to choose the same encoding for two identical
emails. For two different emails, you can't be sure - see the
documentation of the above mentioned variable.

> What do you think? 

I won't say you're wrong, but an example would make your case much more
convincing :-)


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "For the fireengines                                         Adam Sjøgren
  But they were all upside down"                         asjo@koldfront.dk

Re: unreadable message

[Alexey Pustyntsev]

Hello Adam!


Thanks for your attention to my problem.

info-gnus-english-request@gnu.org writes:
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2008 13:24:53 +0100
> From: asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sj?gren )
> Subject: Re: unreadable message
> To: info-gnus-english@gnu.org
> Message-ID: <87od0qbe22.fsf@topper.koldfront.dk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
> Which programmes did he try? I find it quite hard to believe that any
> modern mail-programme does not decode Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
> automatically.

He used web mail (yandex) and I think the browser was IE. 

>
>> While you managed to decode that bit, which was actually readable in
>> my outgoing mail box but unreadable at my friend's machine, there is
>> no guarantee it's always possible to do that easily.
>
> Well, base64 encoding is in the MIME standard, so all mail programmes
> that understand MIME _ought_ to be able to decode it.

Well, I understand all that and just tell you what happened. 

>
>> Usually, what you get after decoding is a set of numbers with
>> backslashes in front of them, which are the unicode character codes,
>> as I understand it.
>
> How did you come to this understanding?

Of course, I may be wrong about unicode, but I tried to decode some of
such messages. The result was a message composed of characters like
\320\264\275, etc. This is unreadable too.

>> I don't think that manually running base64 decoding is an acceptable
>> alternative for a decent MUA.
>
> Of course not. A decent MUA automatically does base64 decoding when
> encountering a base64-encode email. Just as it automatically decodes
> quoted-printable and handles charsets.
>
>> Unfortunately, the bug is of occasional nature, which means not every
>> text causes that to happen. It seems that Gnus/Emacs functions dealing
>> with unicode may have this bug.
>
> I am not sure this is a bug in Gnus - from what you have presented so
> far, it sounds like lack of MIME support in your friends' programmes.

This is very unlikely. Usually, famous web mail services (e.g. google,
yahoo, yandex, hotmail) have proper MIME support. However, my Gnus
produces these unreadable messages, some of which I cannot read myself
even after decoding, as I already said. 

> Gnus chooses the encoding based on what the most efficient encoding is -
> this may be why you think it the behaviour is occational, it depends on
> t he content:
>
> ,----[ C-h v mm-content-transfer-encoding-defaults RET ]
> | `mm-content-transfer-encoding-defaults' is a variable declared in Lisp.
> |   -- loaded from "mm-encode"
> | 
> | Value: (("text/x-patch" 8bit) ("text/.*" qp-or-base64)
> | ("message/rfc822" 8bit) ("application/emacs-lisp" qp-or-base64)
> | ("application/x-emacs-lisp" qp-or-base64) ("application/x-patch"
> | qp-or-base64) (".*" base64)) 
> | 
> | Documentation:
> | Alist of regexps that match MIME types and their encodings.
> | If the encoding is `qp-or-base64', then either quoted-printable
> | or base64 will be used, depending on what is more efficient.
> | 
> | `qp-or-base64' has another effect.  It will fold long lines so that
> | MIME parts may not be broken by MTA.  So do `quoted-printable' and
> | `base64'.
> | 
> | Note: It affects body encoding only when a part is a raw forwarded
> | message (which will be made by `gnus-summary-mail-forward' with the
> | arg 2 for example) or is neither the text/* type nor the message/*
> | type.  Even though in those cases, you can use the `encoding' MML tag
> | to specify encoding of non-ASCII MIME parts.
> `----
>
> You can change the value of this variable if you don't want Gnus to
> choose between quoted-printable and base64 automatically.

Well, that's all fine, but what's really happening is that users
may type cyrillic (utf8), hit (C-c C-c) and the result may be either
readable or unreadable or readable after decoding. We don't know that
beforehand and I think we need not because the MUA is expected to do
that consistently. If it doesn't, I presume that to be a bug.

What do you think? 

-- 
Rgds
Alexey

Today is Pungenday, the 21st day of The Aftermath in the YOLD 3174

Re: unreadable message

[poppyer]

asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sjøgren) writes:

> On Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:02:54 +1000, Alexey wrote:
>
>> Again, the same weirdness. My recipient got this.
>
>> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>> Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 Message-Id:
Please double check that there should be "newlines" here.
i.e. The following is the correct form:

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Message-Id:



>
>> 0KHQsNC9INCh0LDQvdGL0YcsDQoNCtCa0L7RgNC+0YLQutC+LCDRh9C10Lwg0LzRiyDQt9Cw0L3Q
>> uNC80LDQtdC80YHRjyBodHRwOi8vd3d3LnN5Y29yZS5vcmcgLiDQntC00LjQvSDQuNC3INC90LDR
>> iNC40YUNCtC40LfQstC10YHRgtC90YvRhSDQv9GA0L7QtdC60YLQvtCyINCyINGB0LXRgtC4IGh0
>> dHA6Ly93d3cuZ290YWxrLnJ1L2R0YWxrLmh0bWwNCg0K0JIg0L7QsdGJ0LXQvCwg0LzRiyDRgNCw
>> 0LfRgNCw0LHQsNGC0YvQstCw0LXQvCDRgNCw0LfQvdC+0L7QsdGA0LDQt9C90L7QtSDQn9CeLiDQ
>> mtC+0L3QutGA0LXRgtC90L4sINC70LjRh9C90L4g0Y8g0LINCtC00LDQvdC90YvQuSDQvNC+0LzQ
>> ...

Re: unreadable message

[Adam Sjøgren]

On Sat, 08 Nov 2008 16:05:02 +1000, Alexey wrote:

>> What, exactly, seems to be the problem?

> Once the post command (C-c C-c) typed, it may produce garbage.

base64 encoding is part of the MIME specification¹. It can hardly be
classsified as "garbage".

> People, who receive the mail, cannot read it. For instance, a friend
> of mine, who is an ordinary windows user, tried to read it on
> different machines but with no luck. Frequently, when that happens, I
> cannot read it either.    

Which programmes did he try? I find it quite hard to believe that any
modern mail-programme does not decode Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
automatically.

> While you managed to decode that bit, which was actually readable in
> my outgoing mail box but unreadable at my friend's machine, there is
> no guarantee it's always possible to do that easily.

Well, base64 encoding is in the MIME standard, so all mail programmes
that understand MIME _ought_ to be able to decode it.

> Usually, what you get after decoding is a set of numbers with
> backslashes in front of them, which are the unicode character codes,
> as I understand it.

How did you come to this understanding?

> I don't think that manually running base64 decoding is an acceptable
> alternative for a decent MUA.

Of course not. A decent MUA automatically does base64 decoding when
encountering a base64-encode email. Just as it automatically decodes
quoted-printable and handles charsets.

> Unfortunately, the bug is of occasional nature, which means not every
> text causes that to happen. It seems that Gnus/Emacs functions dealing
> with unicode may have this bug.

I am not sure this is a bug in Gnus - from what you have presented so
far, it sounds like lack of MIME support in your friends' programmes.

Gnus chooses the encoding based on what the most efficient encoding is -
this may be why you think it the behaviour is occational, it depends on
t he content:

,----[ C-h v mm-content-transfer-encoding-defaults RET ]
| `mm-content-transfer-encoding-defaults' is a variable declared in Lisp.
|   -- loaded from "mm-encode"
| 
| Value: (("text/x-patch" 8bit) ("text/.*" qp-or-base64) ("message/rfc822" 8bit) ("application/emacs-lisp" qp-or-base64) ("application/x-emacs-lisp" qp-or-base64) ("application/x-patch" qp-or-base64) (".*" base64))
| 
| Documentation:
| Alist of regexps that match MIME types and their encodings.
| If the encoding is `qp-or-base64', then either quoted-printable
| or base64 will be used, depending on what is more efficient.
| 
| `qp-or-base64' has another effect.  It will fold long lines so that
| MIME parts may not be broken by MTA.  So do `quoted-printable' and
| `base64'.
| 
| Note: It affects body encoding only when a part is a raw forwarded
| message (which will be made by `gnus-summary-mail-forward' with the
| arg 2 for example) or is neither the text/* type nor the message/*
| type.  Even though in those cases, you can use the `encoding' MML tag
| to specify encoding of non-ASCII MIME parts.
`----

You can change the value of this variable if you don't want Gnus to
choose between quoted-printable and base64 automatically.


  Best regards,

     Adam


¹ <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2045>

-- 
 "you will enjoy the video."                                  Adam Sjøgren
                                                         asjo@koldfront.dk

Re: unreadable message

[Alexey Pustyntsev]

Hello Adam!

Thanks for your reply.

> Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:58:03 +0100
> From: asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sj?gren )
> Subject: Re: unreadable message

> What, exactly, seems to be the problem?

Once the post command (C-c C-c) typed, it may produce garbage.
People, who receive the mail, cannot read it. For instance, a friend
of mine, who is an ordinary windows user, tried to read it on
different machines but with no luck. Frequently, when that happens, I
cannot read it either.    

While you managed to decode that bit, which was actually readable in
my outgoing mail box but unreadable at my friend's machine, there is
no guarantee it's always possible to do that easily. Usually, what you
get after decoding is a set of numbers with backslashes in front of
them, which are the unicode character codes, as I understand it.  

I don't think that manually running base64 decoding is an acceptable
alternative for a decent MUA. Unfortunately, the bug is of occasional
nature, which means not every text causes that to happen. It seems
that Gnus/Emacs functions dealing with unicode may have this bug.

-- 
Rgds
Alexey

Today is Boomtime, the 20th day of The Aftermath in the YOLD 3174

Re: unreadable message

[Adam Sjøgren]

On Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:02:54 +1000, Alexey wrote:

> Again, the same weirdness. My recipient got this.

> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 Message-Id:

> 0KHQsNC9INCh0LDQvdGL0YcsDQoNCtCa0L7RgNC+0YLQutC+LCDRh9C10Lwg0LzRiyDQt9Cw0L3Q
> uNC80LDQtdC80YHRjyBodHRwOi8vd3d3LnN5Y29yZS5vcmcgLiDQntC00LjQvSDQuNC3INC90LDR
> iNC40YUNCtC40LfQstC10YHRgtC90YvRhSDQv9GA0L7QtdC60YLQvtCyINCyINGB0LXRgtC4IGh0
> dHA6Ly93d3cuZ290YWxrLnJ1L2R0YWxrLmh0bWwNCg0K0JIg0L7QsdGJ0LXQvCwg0LzRiyDRgNCw
> 0LfRgNCw0LHQsNGC0YvQstCw0LXQvCDRgNCw0LfQvdC+0L7QsdGA0LDQt9C90L7QtSDQn9CeLiDQ
> mtC+0L3QutGA0LXRgtC90L4sINC70LjRh9C90L4g0Y8g0LINCtC00LDQvdC90YvQuSDQvNC+0LzQ
> ...

What, exactly, seems to be the problem?

If I decode the above (as any MIME-supporting mail-reader would), I get
something that looks like russian to me, including some links?

I.e.:

 "Сан Саныч, Коротко, чем мы занимаемся http://www.sycore.org . Один из �аших известных проектов в сети http://www.gotalk.ru/dtalk.html В общем, мы разрабатываем разнообразное ПО. Конкретно, лично я в данный мом"

(i.e. by running M-x base64-decode-region on it).


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "Vegetarian progressive grindcore"                           Adam Sjøgren
                                                         asjo@koldfront.dk

Re: unreadable message

[Alexey Pustyntsev]

Hello!

Again, the same weirdness. My recipient got this.

MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 Message-Id:

0KHQsNC9INCh0LDQvdGL0YcsDQoNCtCa0L7RgNC+0YLQutC+LCDRh9C10Lwg0LzRiyDQt9Cw0L3Q
uNC80LDQtdC80YHRjyBodHRwOi8vd3d3LnN5Y29yZS5vcmcgLiDQntC00LjQvSDQuNC3INC90LDR
iNC40YUNCtC40LfQstC10YHRgtC90YvRhSDQv9GA0L7QtdC60YLQvtCyINCyINGB0LXRgtC4IGh0
dHA6Ly93d3cuZ290YWxrLnJ1L2R0YWxrLmh0bWwNCg0K0JIg0L7QsdGJ0LXQvCwg0LzRiyDRgNCw
0LfRgNCw0LHQsNGC0YvQstCw0LXQvCDRgNCw0LfQvdC+0L7QsdGA0LDQt9C90L7QtSDQn9CeLiDQ
mtC+0L3QutGA0LXRgtC90L4sINC70LjRh9C90L4g0Y8g0LINCtC00LDQvdC90YvQuSDQvNC+0LzQ
...

This time, however, I can read the outgoing message on my
box. Definitely, there is a serious bug, but it's not easily
reproduced.  

-- 
Rgds
Alexey

Today is Boomtime, the 10th day of The Aftermath in the YOLD 3174

Re: unreadable message

[Alexey Pustyntsev]

Hi Reiner!


> Are you saying it happened *during* composing a message, *before*
> sending it?  If so, I have no idea why this might happen.

It happened immediately after the C-c C-c command was issued. I
didn't see anything strange during composing a message.

>
> But the excerpt below looks like an archived (outgoing) article:

Yes, it does. Considering accidental archiving to be a likely cause
of the weirdness, what do you think might have triggered it when my
default settings were unchanged (gnus-message-archive-group is nil)
and the other messages were OK?  Typing a wrong command doesn't seem
to be probable.  

> Using "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64" (what you called
> "encrypted") happens when there are many 8bit characters
> (`mm-qp-or-base64').  There's nothing wrong with that.

<joke>
That's all very well, except that some Gnus users may accidentally
lose their lengthy 8-bit character messages, which are, of course,
extremely intelligent and valuable :)
</joke>

Is there a chance to restore the message if it was archived like that? 

-- 
Rgds
Alexey

Today is Sweetmorn, the 57th day of Bureaucracy in the YOLD 3174

Re: unreadable message

[Alexey Pustyntsev]

Hi, Reiner!

After the weird message was sent, I can look at it in my outbox
(nnml:outbox) only.    

-- 
Rgds
Alexey

Today is Prickle-Prickle, the 55th day of Bureaucracy in the YOLD 3174

Re: unreadable message

[Reiner Steib]

On Sun, Sep 14 2008, Alexey Pustyntsev wrote:

> A few days ago, when I finished my reply to a friend of mine and hit
> the post command (C-c C-c), the whole message turned to be
> completely ureadable (a cryptic mess).

Where do you look at the unreadable, "encrypted" message?

> It looked as if it had been encrypted and, of course, none of us
> could read it. That happend to my Gnus a couple of times
> recently. The last message is still in my outbox. I wonder if anyone
> has experienced anything similar? Please, share your thoughts.

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo---  |  PGP key available  |  http://rsteib.home.pages.de/

unreadable message

[Alexey Pustyntsev]

Hi all!

Considering the Gnus, I have seen some strange things. A few days ago,
when I finished my reply to a friend of mine and hit the post command
(C-c C-c), the whole message turned to be completely ureadable (a
cryptic mess). It looked as if it had been encrypted and, of course,
none of us could read it. That happend to my Gnus a couple of times
recently. The last message is still in my outbox. I wonder if anyone
has experienced anything similar? Please, share your thoughts.

-- 
Rgds
Alexey