A problem with Apple's Mail program has been brewing for several
weeks. Specifically, the problem lies with attachments sent to users on
other (non-Mac) platforms. The attachments usually go through
without a hitch, and the recipient can open them without a problem. But
sometimes they don't, and therein lies the problem.
This is one of those issues that the IT department absolutely hates
to hear about - the infamous "intermittent problem." If you give us a
problem that always happens at the same time, when you do the same
thing, or in the same way, we can fix it. But those
ghost-in-the-machine, "well it didn't do it this time," "it only
happens sometimes" problems drive us crazy.
I wonder if Apple feels the same way, because that is exactly what
they have on their hands.
I have been following this on
the Apple Support Forum as well as some third-party boards
for a couple of months. I was unable to duplicate the problem, and it
had never happened to me, as far as I knew. Then one day I received
replies to two emails, both recipients asking me to resend the email
because they could not open the attachment (in this case a Microsoft
Word document, though it also happened with an Adobe PDF file). I
resent it. They still could not open it. I resent it using Entourage.
Now they could open the attachment.
I would be curious to find out if this is a situation that happens
all of the time on some of computers. If that is the case, it could be
duplicated and diagnosed. Unfortunately, neither of the two recipients
who could not open my attachment are anything more than business
associates. If I could find someone I knew personally who had this
problem with Mail attachments, I could trade some email with them and
hopefully narrow down the scope of the problem.
I first started seeing posts on this problem back in February.
Apple, through the Forum, has admitted the problem, although alleging
it also happens with other email programs and even on other platforms.
I have never had this problem with Entourage, Outlook Express, or
Eudora (the only other Mac email programs I have used extensively).
[Editor's note: No problems with Claris Emailer or PowerMail 3 either.]
However, I do recall having a similar issue with a Windows email client
(of course, the name escapes me now) several years ago. It turned out
to be a problem with the way the program encoded and compressed
attachments.
This issue can be duplicated in Entourage. Create an email with an
attachment. Change encoding from "Apple Double" to anything else and
change compression to anything other than "none." Send it to enough
users, and sooner or later this very issue will rear its ugly head.
As of this morning, I have reluctantly switched to Entourage as my
every day email program. While this has fixed my most pressing problem,
it has created a number of others. If Entourage can be made to use the
Apple Address Book, I can't figure out how. I have found some
third-party utilities to sync the Apple and Entourage address books,
but this is cumbersome.
I have also lost use of Apple's fantastic spam filter. Once again,
my inbox is full of mail from get-rich quick schemes, pornographers,
online casinos, and medical practitioners offering to increase the size
of every imaginable body part.
Have you had this same problem? Are you able to narrow it to certain
recipients and/or file types? Let me hear from you. Maybe we can help
track down the ghost in this machine together. I will report back when
we know something more.
Right now, I have to go. The former Nigerian Minister of Finance
needs my help with an "urgent matter."
