Why won't gnus display certain messages

Why won't gnus display certain messages

[reader]

I got a recent email I suspect was generated on a webmail setup.
Gnus displays it in a completely unusable form.   (Included at the
end)

I've been using w3m to display html emails and mostly it has worked ok
but in this case it fails miserably.

From ~/.gnus
  (setq mm-automatic-display (remove "text/html" mm-automatic-display)
       mm-discouraged-alternatives '("text/html" "text/richtext"))  
  (setq mm-text-html-renderer (quote w3m))

I forwarded the message from my linux setup to a machine running
windows XP and forte-agent.   That `agent' displays the message fine. 

In gnus there actually is nothing displayed for body.  But viewing the
message with `C-u g' shows these mail and mime headers. I've chopped
out or mangled some headers and all but two lines of what gnus has
displayed for the body.

Can anyone tell from this information why gnus would be unable to
display the body?

  X-From-Line: wilson@somewhere.com  Thu Nov  8 17:18:56 2007
  [...]
  To: reader@newsguy.com
  From: wilson@somewhere.com
  Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:40:34 GMT
  Subject: Land on Shawnee-Egypt rd
  X-Gnus-Mail-Source: directory:/home/reader/spool/
  Message-ID: <a2fe90e1781443f5a219eb167245dae5@Certmail.com>
  X-Priority: 3
  MIME-Version: 1.0
  Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
  	boundary="----=_NextPart_e4af4cf4_7979_47c9_91e9_88249be61961"
  X-UIDL: a,2"!QG>"!i\W"!gE*#!
  Xref: reader.local.lan move.WilsonB:7
  Lines: 69
  
  This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
  
  ------=_NextPart_e4af4cf4_7979_47c9_91e9_88249be61961
  Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
  	boundary="----=_NextPart_771a874f_62e4_4eec_8d4a_cd940bc67c6f"
  
  ------=_NextPart_771a874f_62e4_4eec_8d4a_cd940bc67c6f
  Content-Type: text/plain;
  	charset="utf-8"
  Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
  
  
  ------=_NextPart_771a874f_62e4_4eec_8d4a_cd940bc67c6f
  Content-Type: text/html;
  	charset="utf-8"
  Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
  
  SXRzIGRlZmluaXRlbHkgZ29vZCB0byBoZWFyIGZyb20geW91LiZuYnNwOyBJIHdhcyB0YWxraW5n
  IHRvIHNvbWVvbmUgYWJvdXQgeW91IGp1c3QgdGhlIG90aGVyIGRheSBhbmQgc3RhcnRlZCB0byBn
  [...]
  ------=_NextPart_771a874f_62e4_4eec_8d4a_cd940bc67c6f--
  
  ------=_NextPart_e4af4cf4_7979_47c9_91e9_88249be61961--

Re: Why won't gnus display certain messages

[Miles Bader]

reader@newsguy.com writes:
> In gnus there actually is nothing displayed for body.  But viewing the
> message with `C-u g' shows these mail and mime headers. I've chopped
> out or mangled some headers and all but two lines of what gnus has
> displayed for the body.

Er, is this a trick question?

You explicitly seem to have told Gnus to not display html by default,
and to always prefer text to html if a message has both alternatives:

  (setq mm-automatic-display (remove "text/html" mm-automatic-display)
       mm-discouraged-alternatives '("text/html" "text/richtext"))  
  (setq mm-text-html-renderer (quote w3m))

Your example message has an _empty_ "text" alternative, along with a
non-empty "html" alternative, and Gnus is displaying the (empty) text
alternative (because you told it to with the above settings).  The other
MUA you tried displayed the (non-empty) html alternative.

The real problem of course is that the software that sent the message
screwed up big-time by including an unusable text alternative.

-miles

-- 
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten.  [George Carlin]

Re: Why won't gnus display certain messages

[reader]

Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org> writes:

> reader@newsguy.com writes:
>> In gnus there actually is nothing displayed for body.  But viewing the
>> message with `C-u g' shows these mail and mime headers. I've chopped
>> out or mangled some headers and all but two lines of what gnus has
>> displayed for the body.
>
> Er, is this a trick question?
>
> You explicitly seem to have told Gnus to not display html by default,
> and to always prefer text to html if a message has both alternatives:

Hehe... yes, a poorly phrased question.  I should have asked why
nothing was displayed.  In all cases thus far gnus has presented me
with the text and a mime part to allow me to have the html rendered if
so desired by w3m

> Your example message has an _empty_ "text" alternative, along with a
> non-empty "html" alternative, and Gnus is displaying the (empty) text
> alternative (because you told it to with the above settings).  The other
> MUA you tried displayed the (non-empty) html alternative.

But I wasn't presented with the Mime part to have rendered if so
desired as in all cases up to now.

Is there something more about the message that is causing that to happen?

Or some other formulation for .gnus that would have caused something
to be displayed?

Re: Why won't gnus display certain messages

[Tassilo Horn]

reader@newsguy.com writes:

Hi,

> Or some other formulation for .gnus that would have caused something
> to be displayed?

Have a look at

,----[ C-h v gnus-buttonized-mime-types RET ]
| gnus-buttonized-mime-types is a variable defined in `gnus-art.el'.
| Its value is 
| ("multipart/signed" "multipart/alternative")
| 
| 
| Documentation:
| List of MIME types that should be given buttons when rendered inline.
| If set, this variable overrides `gnus-unbuttonized-mime-types'.
| To see e.g. security buttons you could set this to
| `("multipart/signed")'.  You could also add "multipart/alternative" to
| this list to display radio buttons that allow you to choose one of two
| media types those mails include.  See also `mm-discouraged-alternatives'.
| This variable is only used when `gnus-inhibit-mime-unbuttonizing' is nil.
| 
| You can customize this variable.
| 
| This variable was introduced, or its default value was changed, in
| version 22.1 of Emacs.
`----

With this setting I get buttons for multipart/alternative mails which
allow me to switch from one alternative to the other.

You can also switch from viewing one part to viewing another by pressing
`b'.  (Most of the time I don't use the buttons to switch, but they're a
nice indicator.)

Bye,
Tassilo
-- 
When an episode  of Walker Texas Ranger was aired  in France, the French
surrendered to Chuck Norris just to be on the safe side.

Re: Why won't gnus display certain messages

[reader]

Tassilo Horn <tassilo@member.fsf.org> writes:

> reader@newsguy.com writes:
>
> Hi,
>
>> Or some other formulation for .gnus that would have caused something
>> to be displayed?
>
> Have a look at
>
> ,----[ C-h v gnus-buttonized-mime-types RET ]
> | gnus-buttonized-mime-types is a variable defined in `gnus-art.el'.
> | Its value is 
> | ("multipart/signed" "multipart/alternative")

[...]

> With this setting I get buttons for multipart/alternative mails which
> allow me to switch from one alternative to the other.
>
> You can also switch from viewing one part to viewing another by pressing
> `b'.  (Most of the time I don't use the buttons to switch, but they're a
> nice indicator.)

That looks like a nice comfortabe  solution.  Thanks