Thunderbird Delivers Bad Messages

[Guerri Stevens]

I have recently installed Thunderbird. I notice that some messages from the Dixonary Google group are garbled. The ones I have seen have come from Judy Russell, Lindsey Bourne, and David Harper. The problem is that the body of the message is entirely blank and there is an attachment, which doesn't do anything when I click on it. Some, but not all, are tagged as "spam".

This morning I looked at my Email first with Mail2Web, leaving the messages on the server when I'd finished reading them. All of them looked fine there. Then I asked Thunderbird to collect my mail. Thunderbird delivered them as described above.

I believe that all of these messages were posted here in the parlor - can any of you confirm this? The messages would then have been transmitted to the Google group, from which they would have been delivered to me. I mention this in case it's significant.

So far, other messages delivered from the Google group are fine. And in the past, I have had no problems with messages taking the route from here, to Google, to me. So my guess is that either something has happened recently to that process, or, more likely, I have something set up wrong in Thunderbird.

My version of Thunderbird is 2.0.0.12 and I installed it late on March 6. I'm running Vista, in case that makes any difference. Can anyone think of something that might be wrong with my Thunderbird settings?

As a side note, the three messages I collected today that were tagged as "spam" all had "Vista" in the subject - do you think this is significant?????

[sidney]

My version of Thunderbird is 2.0.0.12 and I installed it late on March 6. I'm running Vista, in case that makes any difference. Can anyone think of something that might be wrong with my Thunderbird settings?

Thunderbird has some options under the View menu item that could make the difference. There is View | Message Body As which has three choices, Original HTML, Simple HTML, and Plain Text. There is also View | Display Attachments Inline.

If you are receiving HTML mail with attached images that you want to see in your mail viewer, you would select Original HTML and you would select Display Attachments Inline if it is not checked. That last one is a little confusing: You click on the View menu item, and you either see the submenu item Display Attachments Online with a checkmark next to it or without one. If you select that menu item it toggles the checkmark.

As far as the spam goes, what are you using to flag spam? Is it ThunderBird's built in spam filter ("junk mail controls")? If it is, then you are supposed to train it by clicking on the "this is not junk" button that it gives you on each message that it has marked as junk mail. I don't know exactly how that looks because I don't run it, relying on the spam filter that my ISP runs before the mail ever gets to me.

--sidney

[Guerri Stevens]

Thunderbird has some options under the View menu item that could make the difference...

If you are receiving HTML mail with attached images ...

As far as the spam goes, what are you using to flag spam?

As far as the View is concerned, I could believe that was the problem if other messages were affected, but they aren't. As far as I can tell, only messages that originated here, were transmitted to the Google Dixonary group, and then transmitted to me have the problem. And I am not sure the bad messages all followed that route; it is an assumption I'm making because the individuals who sent them are not involved in the Dixonary game itself so normally would not send messages there. I would not have expected any of those messages to include images, either.

One thing I don't know about the View: I have been assuming that it affects only how a message is displayed, and does not cause a message to be altered based on how the View is set. In other words, I could be looking at a message, and decide to change the View based on what I'm seeing or not seeing.

Another interesting thing: I suspect that a message that follows the route mentioned above will have a signature attached whether or not the author of the message included one. I say this because a test message I posted here came out that way, and at least one of Lindsey's messages did. I have some vague memory about that - some of the players in the group have CompuServe accounts and are using TAPCIS; they don't see the sender's name, just the Dixonary group name, and therefore it is our informal practice to sign our messages. But sometimes people forget. So it would not surprise me to learn that the feed from here to the Google group includes coding to add the name.

I am using Thunderbird's spam filter and have paid no attention to it. I believe it will not mark messages from people in my address book, but I lost that as a result of my disk crash and have not yet recreated it. I don't know what spam filtering is provided by the tapcis.com Email. I can test by turning off Tbird's spam filter and then send myself a test message and see what happens.

No other members of the group have complained, which is why I suspect my Tbird settings. You comments on the spam filter make me think that it is at least part of the problem. My older version of Thunderbird did not have the filter. I will look into that.

[sidney]

As far as I can tell, only messages that originated here, were transmitted to the Google Dixonary group, and then transmitted to me have the problem

If you want to know for sure if there is something unusual about the message, send one of them to me using Thunderbird's menu item Message | Forward As | Attachment and mail it to ... let's see how I can say it so the actual email address doesn't appear here for spam harvesters ... my username is sidney and it is at the domain sidney.com

Make sure you specify to forward it as an attachment, then in the main body of the message you send me describe what you expect to see in that message and what you actually see.

I am using Thunderbird's spam filter [...] I don't know what spam filtering is provided by the tapcis.com Email

When we switch tapcis.com email to be powered by Google you will have the option of using Google Mail's spam filtering which is really good. I would suggest that at that point you enable it and turn off Thunderbird's junk mail filter.

-- sidney

[Guerri Stevens]

If you want to know for sure if there is something unusual about the message, send one of them to me using Thunderbird's menu item Message | Forward As | Attachment ...

I have forwarded a message to you. I may experiment and forward it to myself as well, just to see what happens.

Last night all my Email was tagged as possible junk. Interesting because I thought the adaptive junk features had been turned on all along in Thunderbird, and last night was the first time this happened. I clicked the "not junk" button on everything, and afterward turned off the junk features entirely. This may not have preceded the sending of the message I'm forwarding.

Hmm, that latter doesn't make sense. If Thunderbird is the culprit, the time the message was sent wouldn't matter. What would matter is the time at which I told Thunderbird to collect it. Until then it would be sitting on the server. Now I am thinking that the junk filter settings are not the problem.

Another distinct possibility is my virus software, AVG. Or even McAfee which came pre-installed and which may be running - I don't know whether I turned it off or not, but I thought I did. I ought to keep better notes.

[sidney]

Or even McAfee which came pre-installed and which may be running

That was it. The email you sent me had a "X-MSK: [SPAM]" header in it, which is what McAfee SpamKiller inserts when it thinks that mail is spam. The conversion of the message from text to an attachment is somthing that MSK does to protect you from seeing the supposed spam.

-- sidney

[Guerri Stevens]

That was it. The email you sent me had a "X-MSK: [SPAM]" header in it, which is what McAfee SpamKiller inserts when it thinks that mail is spam. The conversion of the message from text to an attachment is somthing that MSK does to protect you from seeing the supposed spam.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! This morning I uninstalled McAfee - this was before reading your message just now (after 5 p.m.).

Of course now I wonder why McAfee considered those particular messages to be spam, and why only some of them were so marked is another question. And at what point did the marking occur? I assume not until Thunderbird read them. And why were some marked with Spam in the subject and not others? And why couldn't I double click on the attachments and open them?

Maybe I should just be grateful and not ask any more questions. This is something to remember in case it strikes anyone else.

-- Guerri

[sidney]

Of course now I wonder why McAfee considered those particular messages to be spam, and why only some of them were so marked is another question. And at what point did the marking occur? I assume not until Thunderbird read them. And why were some marked with Spam in the subject and not others? And why couldn't I double click on the attachments and open them?

I can answer one and a half of the questions. The marking occurred at the same time as the virus scan, which intercepts Thunderbird's request of mail from the mail server and scans for virus and spam before Thunderbird sees it.

I can half answer why you can't double click the attachment. It's because that's how the McAfee programmers chose to write it, presumably to prevent your innocent eyes from being offended by seeing nasty spam. The attachment is clearly deliberately made so clicking it will not open it. What I can't answer is why in the world those programmers could not conceive that their wonderful spam filter might not be perfect and maybe you would need a way to look at the attachment in case it really isn't spam.

[Lindsey]

What I can't answer is why in the world those programmers could not conceive that their wonderful spam filter might not be perfect and maybe you would need a way to look at the attachment in case it really isn't spam.
Well, in the case of McAfee, I can believe it. I can remember a message exchange I had with McAfee himself back in the very old days of CompuServe on whatever forum he hung out on to support his anti-virus products. I had installed his FluShot Plus on my PC, and when I mentioned to him that I had had to uninstall it because it was causing PC-Write to behave oddly, he refused to believe that his software could possibly be the source of the problem. Of course, all I knew was that PC-Write behaved fine before I installed FluShot Plus, and fine after I uninstalled it, and the only time it did odd things was when FluShot Plus was running. And what is that against McAfee's absolute certainty that his software was above reproach?

Guerri: Check out NOD32 (http://www.eset.com/) if you want to try a different anti-virus product.

--Lindsey

[Guerri Stevens]

... What I can't answer is why in the world those programmers could not conceive that their wonderful spam filter might not be perfect and maybe you would need a way to look at the attachment in case it really isn't spam.
I found out that although you cannot click on the attachment to open it, you can ask to save it, and if you save it with a .txt extension, you can then open it. Not that you would want to do that, because if McAfee says it's spam, it must be spam, right????

[Guerri Stevens]

Guerri: Check out NOD32 (http://www.eset.com/) if you want to try a different anti-virus product.

Thanks for the recommendation of NOD32. My husband is using it and has no trouble. I have been using the free version of AVG, but maybe that is not enough.

I used McAfee for a long time, back when you could download it and update it easily. But the more recent commercial versions have been annoying, although until now I didn't realize *how* annoying! I had trouble with Norton's anti virus awhile back, as I recall because it would pop up a message telling you it was time to update, and you could say "remind me in one day" (or various choices) and 5 minutes later it would pop up again.

[Lindsey]

I had trouble with Norton's anti virus awhile back, as I recall because it would pop up a message telling you it was time to update, and you could say "remind me in one day" (or various choices) and 5 minutes later it would pop up again.
One of the nice things about NOD32 is that it does its update thing in the background without ever intruding on you. The only time it pops up in your face is when it is time to pay to renew your subscription to the updates.

--Lindsey

[sidney]

I am using Thunderbird's spam filter

That reminds me, have you tried out using Thunderbird to access your new Google Mail tapcis.com mailbox? I'm just waiting for everyone to report that they have successfully got it working before I flip the switch to send all the tapcis.com mailboxes through Google Mail instead of GoDaddy.

[Guerri Stevens]

That reminds me, have you tried out using Thunderbird to access your new Google Mail tapcis.com mailbox? I'm just waiting for everyone to report that they have successfully got it working before I flip the switch to send all the tapcis.com mailboxes through Google Mail instead of GoDaddy.
Yes, I just tried it. Once the thunderstorms in our area passed on, I decided it was safe to use the computer again, and thought I'd spend a few minutes setting up the new Email. A few minutes - HA! I am not sure where messages about the new Email should be posted. I must be the only person with questions cause I don't see any here or in the general forum.

I did get as far as sending test messages and they seemed to work. I don't know if you are using Thunderbird or not, but I have a couple of comments about it which I will post elsewhere as well. One is that in Tbird, on the Server settings page, the user name has to include the "@tapcis.com". If it doesn't, when you ask it to get your Email, and you type in your password, it tells you that the server rejected the user name and password. If you're like me, you type in the password oh-so-carefully again and it still doesn't work. That is because the password is OK, it's the user name that is wrong (if you don't include the @ stuff). I don't know whether the Google instructions mention that.

The other thing is that you might want to do is use the Advanced button on the server page and direct the Email to the global inbox. That's if you want all incoming mail to arrive there. I generally do, with the exception of dixonary, for which I have a filter. There is an odd warning about doing that, I forget what it says exactly and will have to look again.

[Mike]

One is that in Tbird, on the Server settings page, the user name has to include the "@tapcis.com".
That is correct.

I don't know whether the Google instructions mention that.
They do not. The Google instructions for the individual e-mail clients are for generic e-mail, not for e-mail for an organization.

The other thing is that you might want to do is use the Advanced button on the server page and direct the Email to the global inbox.
That depends on each user's personal preferences for use of T-bird, and it would be bit presumptive for either Google or Sidney and Judy to make that decision for everyone.

[Guerri Stevens]

They do not. The Google instructions for the individual e-mail clients are for generic e-mail, not for e-mail for an organization.
I was talking about an individual - me for instance - not an organization. Hmm, I think you meant that 1) the Google instructions were not specific to us and 2) that it is tapcis.com that is treated as an organization, not we individual users.

That depends on each user's personal preferences for use of T-bird, and it would be bit presumptive for either Google or Sidney and Judy to make that decision for everyone.
I was not suggesting that anyone make a decision for everyone. I was suggesting that Thunderbird users might like to know about the ability to set it up to use the global inbox.

Sorry for the confusion. Any Thunderbird users here probably already know this stuff.

-- Guerri

[Mike]

Hmm, I think you meant that 1) the Google instructions were not specific to us and 2) that it is tapcis.com that is treated as an organization, not we individual users.
Correct. By "individual," I meant someone who goes to gmail.com and registers for an account. By organization, I meant a setup like tapcis.com or someoneelse.com, where gmail provides the infrastructure, but one can only get an account because it was provided by the organization.

[quote=Guerri Stevens;42783] I was not suggesting that anyone make a decision for everyone. I was suggesting that Thunderbird users might like to know about the ability to set it up to use the global inbox.

I think that's a topic for Thunderbird support, not for tapcis.com or Gmail to discuss.

[sidney]

Hmm, I think you meant that 1) the Google instructions were not specific to us and 2) that it is tapcis.com that is treated as an organization, not we individual users

Actually, I think it is a little bit simpler than that. Google wrote those intructions when there was only the gmail service and the login name was just the username portion of the gmail address. Now they have added the Google Apps service . If you are username at a tapcis.com address and someone else has the mailbox username at a gmail.com address and someone else has username@example.com, they can't have all of you login as username. But they have not yet updated the instructions to mention logins that include the full email address.