Strange problem in Outlook Express 2

[Bocaire]

A strange situation has occurred in Outlook Express.

I have a friend who sends me various e-mails, with attachments. He usually sends out these mails to a group of people, and uses the BCC method. He sends the message to himself, and then adds all the other recipients in the BCC field.

I use a number of message rules, and I have one which looks for my e-mail address in the "TO" field, and if it doesn't find it, it diverts that message to a junk folder (which will soon be a "delete from server" message rule).

To keep him from being blocked, I use an earlier rule which lools for his name in the "FROM" field, and channels it to a special folder when it is found, and stops processing more rules.

This seems to work fine. But when the received message is sent out by him, using the BCC approach, I get the message, and the size is large enough to tell me that the attachment is there, But there is no notification in the e-mail that there is an attachment, and there is therfore no way to access the attachment.

So, I had him send a message directly to me (no BCC), with the attachment. My message rules saw that it was from him, and channeled it to the usual folder assigned for that. But this time, the attachment was noted at the top of the message, and was readily opened.

This has me baffled.

Does anyone know why this is happening?

Bocaire

 

[GVN]

Not sure. A quick work-around on the BCC ones that don't show the attachment might be to open the e-mail then click the "Forward" button. I think that the attacment will THEN show up, allowing you to right-click on it and do a "Save As.." or a copy of that object to your hard disk.

Give it a try and let me know....

GVN

 

[linney]

Some similar stories for you to look at.

Why have I not received an attachment when one was sent?

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/computing/mail/oe-faq.html#noattach

Received Email dropping Attachments

http://groups.google.com/group/micr...he+attachment+express&rnum=4#61008fc049403445

http://groups.google.com/groups?sou...=not+everyone+receives+the+attachment+express

OE Removing Access to unsafe attachments....
thread779-462704

 

[smah]

The rules arrangement is correct for what you're trying to accomplish and has nothing to do with why you don't see the attachment. This is likely due to the type of attachment & linney's links should aswer that.

 

[Bocaire]

Hi Linney,

As I mentioned, my friend had previously sent me a message with the attachment, addresses to me, not in the BCC field, and this time it had come through.

He again tried this, and this last time it did not come through to my view. But it is there, as the file size is large. Forwarding doesn't work - I tried that.

I do have the checkbox checked to "not allow attachments to come through etc..", but it isn't clear if this is supposed to block all attachments. It doesn't. as I get other messages with attachments. And a few hours ago, one of his mails came through, while this was still checked.

The attached file is there - because of the message size. something is not consistent in OE.

Bocaire

 

[linney]

Sorry I can't offer any more information. What E-mail program is your friend using?

I'm guessing, and that's all, that it is a problem between his E-mail program and your Outlook Express.
Under the Maintenance tab in OE at the bottom there is the "Troubleshooting" tabs where you could invoke some logging to see if that offers any clues while you and your friend experiment with sending attachments.

It might be that what you are describing is a bug with no presently known solution, so it wouldn't hurt to involve Microsoft Support in the process. Just don't offer to contribute to their "coffers" if you approach them though.

 

[smah]

The OE option to 'Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus' only affects some file types. It does not block all attahments. As I said earlier, This is likely due to the type of attachment. Also be aware that your antivirus software might also be removing certain attachments.

 

[Bocaire]

Is the criteria for attachments documented anywhere? Stangely, it blocked a given attachment (wmv file) 2 out of 3 times, but the 3rd time, the exact same attachment came through.

If my AV acts against a given attachment, I would assume that it would put it into the quarantine folder, along with other infected "stuff". But I've not seen any files in there large enough to be the attachments in question.

Many of the files that were not accessible were WMV files. Are the WMV files a type that can be readily infected?

Thanks for your help.

Bocaire

 

[smah]

I can't find a list of attachment types specific to OE, but it should be quite similar to the list in this KB article:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=235309

Here's some more OE attachment blocking info:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/community/columns/oeandsp2.mspx

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=291387

And here are a couple of articles about possible viri in .wmv files:

http://msmvps.com/blogs/donna/archive/2005/01/13/31831.aspx

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/13/drm_trojan/

If you're getting different behavior for the same attachment, I would suspect your AV scanner. As far as I know, OE's attachment blocking is simply by file type (extension).