Outlook Issues

Errors and Problems

"The item has been moved or deleted..." appears each time an email is sent with Print Wizard.

"Do you want to save changes..." from Outlook or from Microsoft Word on closing Outlook.

Outlook outbound email filters can get in the way.

Attachments can not be opened, they report as corrupt.

Not all attachments can be opened.

Print Wizard has the ability to use Outlook as its email client and push email through it. In most cases this works just fine. However, there are certain circumstances, certain combinations of options and certain Outlook add-ons that can cause problems.

"The item has been moved or deleted..." appears each time an email is sent with Print Wizard.

There is a classification of add-on products for Outlook that monitor and watch, and in many cases, can modify an outbound email. These can cause problems with 3rd party applications, such as Print Wizard. These products change and modify the actual email before sending it on to the recipient and can change your expected results.

An example of one such product is "MailInfo". "MailInfo" is an automated responder that plugs a link back to an image into the outbound email. Depending on your attachment type, this may mess up the attachment, making it unreadable.

The SPAM filtering for "Safe Senders" has been reported as having some influence here, but for a different reason, it is looking at who outbound (and inbound) emails are going to.

"Do you want to save changes..." from Outlook or from Microsoft Word on closing Outlook.

Outlook outbound email filters can get in the way. In this case, it appears that an outbound filter places something on the outbound email and causes a change to take place. It is NOT clear what is really causing the message, but we think that the additional image is needing to be saved locally to be displayed within the "Sent Items" folder properly.

Apparently the settings for "Automatically Download Pictures" can have some influence on this message appearing.

Attachments can not be opened due to corrupt file. (such as a corrupted PDF file)

Several things can influence the attachment and may cause problems with Print Wizard attachments in particular.

•  When an outbound filter or add-in module rewrites the outbound message, it may change offsets and file sizes.

• When Outlook attaches the attachment, in some cases the file seems to be changed, i.e. line feeds may get converted to carriage return-line feeds, etc., causing objects to be of a different size.
• When attaching a file, a header is included specifying the file's MIME type. This is determined automatically from various procedures and Windows registry entries. If there is a problem here, these can cause a good attachment to come across with the wrong MIME type.
• When attaching a file, a header is also included for the "content-encoding". This determines how the actual attachment's content is encoded for sending as email. At least in one case a file of type "quoted-ASCII" the file can end up getting encoded a second time, and carriage returns and line feeds converted improperly.
  • Both of the above should never be a problem, but both are influenced by Windows settings and registry settings.
     
• Inbound on the email client, the attachment may not interpret correctly if for some reason the MIME type or the "content-encoding" does not get handled correctly.
• Inbound filters may strip or otherwise change the email before being viewed and may corrupt the attachment if not set up properly.
• If there is no extension on the file, it becomes more difficult to interpret the file content and the MIME types correctly. Such is the case on Apple's OS/X, where it tries to figure MIME type and related application based on content (but what if the content is encoded?).

Not all attachments can be opened.

A corrupt attachment will have problems opening. If the MIME type is incorrect, or the encoding does not match the header or is not handled by the email sender or receiver, the file can be considered corrupt.

Likewise, inbound and outbound filters, as described above, can cause file corruption.

It is hard to know why an attachment may not open. In most cases, your only alternative is to have the sender re-send it.

Solutions?

Today's email is complicated at the least. With filters, alerts, automated macros and moving's "rules" for Outlook and other mail clients, and with the addition of add-ins gaining control, figuring out what the problem is can be difficult.

Here are a few steps you can follow to see where the problem lies:

If you are sending corrupt files:

• Make sure the attachment will open through Windows Explorer (My Computer).
• Turn off "rules" that affect outbound emails
• Turn off "rules" that move and manage all folders
• Export the email and see if you can look at the raw data to determine the MIME header and the "content-encoding" header.
• Turn off any add-in that you might suspect alters outbound or inbound emails.

We should mention that disabling a filter, rule or add-in may not take affect till the next time you restart Outlook. Be sure to close and re-open Outlook when you do these types of changes in Outlook.

If you receive a corrupt file:

• Instead of viewing the email through Outlook by double-clicking, right-click and do a Save or Save As. Then try opening the file through Windows Explorer (My Computer).
• Save off (export) the email and see if you can see what headers are for the MIME type and the "content-encoding".
• Make sure your attachment has a valid extension and that an application on your PC has a File Association for that extension (this shows when you Save As and open through Windows Explorer).
• Contact the sender and have them re-send it. The file may have lost data in transmission or through filters or firewalls external to the PC.
• Make sure any SPAM, ad-aware protection or anti-virus software is not filtering off the actual attachment as dangerous.
• If you are running through any corporate filers, firewalls, or mail servers, make sure they are not filtering off what they consider dangerous content.

Conclusion

Always feel free to contact us if you are using Print Wizard to generate an attachment and that attachment comes through as corrupt. While we may not be able to tell you what is exactly happening on your specific PC or on the clients, we can give you some hints on what to look for.