Issue with email invitations

greenpea · February 5, 2007

I had received a few emails from people stating that they could not view my emails invitations. When I dug into the problem a little deeper I realized that all of these people were using the comcast webmail interface. I have a comcast account so I was able to tested this.

I found out that the invitations don't show up and their doesn't appear to be any way to view the message. What you get is something that says:

Attachment 1: multipart/alternative (not viewable)

I do NOT believe this is a smugmug bug, and I don't expect a fix from smugmug. I believe this to be a comcast bug and I will contact comcast tech support and request a fix (but I doubt they will ever fix it). However I thought I should post this just in case anyone else runs into this problem.

mkress65 · February 5, 2007

I got a message from my mother-in-law that she was not able to view the email (actually, she said it contained "junk" and she deleted it) on her AOL account. Seems like it could be broader than Comcast.

System · February 5, 2007

I read my email with Mutt, which displays the MIME tree as a tree, and may help in diagnosing this, if it's actually a problem.

Would someone send me an invite?

mkress65 · February 5, 2007

imageinc wrote:

I read my email with Mutt, which displays the MIME tree as a tree, and may help in diagnosing this, if it's actually a problem.

Would someone send me an invite?

<-- Done

greenpea · February 5, 2007

mkress65 wrote:

I got a message from my mother-in-law that she was not able to view the email (actually, she said it contained "junk" and she deleted it) on her AOL account. Seems like it could be broader than Comcast.

My mother also uses AOL and she said she didn't have any problem reading the email, and it didn't get tagged as junk either.

mkress65 · February 5, 2007

greenpea wrote:

My mother also uses AOL and she said she didn't have any problem reading the email, and it didn't get tagged as junk either.

Just to be clear, it didn't get tagged as junk, she said it contained "junk". She deleted it before I asked her to send it to me so I don't know what it contains. I'll try sending her another one and see what she gets (and have her send it to me if its bad.)

System · February 5, 2007

Well, it arrived here as a standard (looking, anyway :-) MIME Multipart/Alternative message body, which Mutt 1.2.5 had no trouble parsing; both the HTML and text/plain versions of the message body look ok rendered, and the HTML mail body likewise looks ok.

I concur with the original diagnosis, Comcast's webmail interface is parsing MIME messages incorrectly. "Comcastic" == broken.

greenpea · February 5, 2007

Comcast seems to have a encoding/decoding problem.

On the comcast webmail interface there is a [View Source] link for emails. Clicking on that link shows the source of the email. In the case of the smugmug gallery invite email, it appeared to be base64 encoded. I ran the email through this base64 encoder/decoder and it confirmed that the correct HTML is in fact coming though its just ending up in the inbox as a base64 encoded message that it doesn't know what to do with.

System · February 5, 2007

Inspecting further I see that yes, they *are* using Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 for both parts of the message.

I'm not sure that's necessary, and clearly, it's causing at least *some* breakage...

Andy: the implementor of that feature may want to revisit the decision to flip the base64 switch -- if in fact that was chosen purposefully.

PhotoPsych · February 5, 2007

Unable to "share" images.....jibberish is sent instead
I have made numerous attempts to "share" photos with both myself (as a test) as well as others. In virtually every instance the following text is sent followed by a long string of numerals and digits. No image, no other recognizable statements.

"Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64"

This has proven quite frustrating, since the feature appears very useful but thus far I have had no success. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I attempted to send from Firefox to my AOL account, From AOL to AOL, etc. No luck so far, same result. Perhaps someone could have a look at my site and see if something is causing this problem?

http://karl-tepfer.smugmug.com/

Andy · February 5, 2007

PhotoPsych wrote:

I have made numerous attempts to "share" photos with both myself (as a test) as well as others. In virtually every instance the following text is sent followed by a long string of numerals and digits. No image, no other recognizable statements.

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

This has proven quite frustrating, since the feature appears very useful but thus far I have had no success. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I attempted to send from Firefox to my AOL account, From AOL to AOL, etc. No luck so far, same result. Perhaps someone could have a look at my site and see if something is causing this problem?

Karl-Tepfer.smugmug.com

Can you tell us more, is this via AOL's Openride, or other sofware? How about if you access your email through AOL's web interface?

greenpea · February 6, 2007

Andy wrote:

Can you tell us more, is this via AOL's Openride, or other sofware? How about if you access your email through AOL's web interface?

Hey Andy, wanted to get my peice in for the comcast customers (who make up a bunch of my customers).

When I sent and invite to my comcast webmail account, as I said earlier it says "Attachment 1: multipart/alternative (not viewable)" but when I view the source of the email I get this (hope it helps) which can be run through a base64 decoder to convert it to the HTML version that should show up...

Received: from sjl1-web1.smugmug.net.smugmug.com (admin1.smugmug.net[63.81.134.30](untrusted sender))
by rwcrmxc14.comcast.net (rwcrmxc14) with ESMTP
id <20070205194059r1400ql65ne>; Mon, 5 Feb 2007 19:40:59 +0000
X-Originating-IP: [63.81.134.30]
Received: from sjl1-web1.smugmug.net.smugmug.com (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])
by sjl1-web1.smugmug.net.smugmug.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id l15JewrO029538
for <a.gorohoff@comcast.net>; Mon, 5 Feb 2007 11:40:58 -0800
Received: (from apache@localhost)
by sjl1-web1.smugmug.net.smugmug.com (8.12.11/8.12.11/Submit) id l15Jewe3029536;
Mon, 5 Feb 2007 11:40:58 -0800
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2007 11:40:58 -0800
Message-Id: <200702051940.l15Jewe3029536@sjl1-web1.smugmug.net.smugmug.com>
To: test <a.gorohoff@comcast.net>
Subject: test
From: Andrew Gorohoff <andrew_gorohoff@hotmail.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary = 111532395745c7884a9b4ec2.43153685
This is a MIME encoded message.
--111532395745c7884a9b4ec2.43153685
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
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--111532395745c7884a9b4ec2.43153685
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Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
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--111532395745c7884a9b4ec2.43153685--

mkress65 · February 6, 2007

I just did another test w/ my mother in law on AOL. She said that she received "junk" (like 2 posts up I'm assuming) and forwarded the email back to me. However, what I received back looked like a standard SmugMug invitation w/ a picture, the Smuggy logo and an invitation to click on a link for more photos.

Granted, she could have been saying that the picture itself was junk, but since the first picture I sent was of her grandaughter, I doubt it.

I've asked her to check her email via AOL's website -- we'll see if that works any differently and I'll post something here.

Is this a commonly encountered / well documented problem w/ AOL?

greenpea · February 6, 2007

mkress65 wrote:

I just did another test w/ my mother in law on AOL. She said that she received "junk" (like 2 posts up I'm assuming) and forwarded the email back to me. However, what I received back looked like a standard SmugMug invitation w/ a picture, the Smuggy logo and an invitation to click on a link for more photos.

Granted, she could have been saying that the picture itself was junk, but since the first picture I sent was of her grandaughter, I doubt it.

I've asked her to check her email via AOL's website -- we'll see if that works any differently and I'll post something here.

Is this a commonly encountered / well documented problem w/ AOL?

In the problem that I am seeing with the comcast webmail, the smugmug invite only looks problematic in the comcast interface, when I forward that same smugmug invite I received at my comcast address to my hotmail or gmail account it looks fine.

greenpea · February 6, 2007

Questions about how email invitations are sent...
The comcast tech support person I am working with wants to know what operating system and program is being used to send the email invitations. I figure the smugmug email invitations are probably an entirely in house developed thing, but any information I can provide him with would be appreciated.

EDIT:
Nevermind. The comcast support person said he doesn't need the above requested info anymore. They are looking into it more deeply at their end.

Andy · February 6, 2007

greenpea wrote:

The comcast tech support person I am working with wants to know what operating system and program is being used to send the email invitations. I figure the smugmug email invitations are probably an entirely in house developed thing, but any information I can provide him with would be appreciated.

EDIT:
Nevermind. The comcast support person said he doesn't need the above requested info anymore. They are looking into it more deeply at their end.

Let us know what they say, thanks.

greenpea · February 6, 2007

Here is the last request that I got from the comcast support person...

No need to inquire about the OS and email program used now. Since this person is using the Send Email feature within SmugMug, their OS is not causing the issue here and they are likely not using an email client at all since the email is composed within the SmugMug site.

To help with investigating this issue further, can you log into your SmugMug account and use this send email feature to send an email to my address so I can see what you are seeing? Or inquire if your friend can send a sample email to my address if you don't have an account there. This way, I'll have a copy to send to the webmail team to investigate further and look into resolving this. Chances are that you may be correct with the base 64 encoding being part of the issue but once I get a sample of one of these emails, we can dig deeper to find the issue.

Thanks

I sent him a smugmug gallery invite, and now I am waiting to hear back from him.

EDIT: Another update from the comcast people

Just letting you know that I received the email example and am seeing the same thing you mentioned above (e.g. Comcast webmail does not display it but forwarding to a Hotmail account does make it visible). I've sent this up to the webmail team to investigate and will follow up with you when I receive any new info.

papajay · February 8, 2007

Getting same Gobble-De-Gook...comcast to aol, netzero.

greenpea wrote:

Here is the last request that I got from the comcast support person...

I sent him a smugmug gallery invite, and now I am waiting to hear back from him.

EDIT: Another update from the comcast people

I am using comcast as my ISP, and IE6.

My email share recipients at aol and netzero are reporting receiving the same junk. Do we really know this a comcast problem for sure, or is there still a possiblity that it is an original source (SmugMug) problem?

Whatever the answer...it's not a feature I can trust to use without alienating recipients (already have...got emails and phone calls...and I am not a PRO trying to sell my photos...ouch!..that would be terrible, I'm sure).

System · February 8, 2007

I had asked, and it got buried and not replied to...

Andy: is there some reason they feel they *need* to Content-Transfer-Encode as base64? I didn't see anything in the messsage bodies that ought to require it...

Andy · February 8, 2007

imageinc wrote:

I had asked, and it got buried and not replied to...

Andy: is there some reason they feel they *need* to Content-Transfer-Encode as base64? I didn't see anything in the messsage bodies that ought to require it...

I have no idea, and it's absolutely not possible for me personally to answer every single question on Dgrin. The engineers watch and read all of these threads, I point them to them, and if there's improvements to be made, they will make them for sure. It's how our site has gotten to where we are today - through incredible cusotmer input.

System · February 8, 2007

I'm speechless.

Andy · February 8, 2007

imageinc wrote:

I'm speechless.

So am I. Imageinc, I don't have time for Private Message games. You see how many posts I make here on Dgrin, how many people we help. You are making it so I can help less people when you PM me with things like this.

PM wrote:

Your capability for replying to the wrong part of what I have to say, providing no useful information, and then telling me how great support is continues to astound me.

You clearly have a *bug* in a newly implemented feature. I clearly have a solution, or at least a reasonable workaround. You're clearly blowing me off, again.

Imaginc, we carry on in the forums, that's what they are for.

I don't blow anyone off, you've only been here a short while. Why not take a breath, have a look at our track record of being responsive to fair, levelheaded, and courteous customer feedback, bug reports, suggestions, gripes and beefs.

We won't be bullied by anyone - and that includes a paying customer. Continue, and I'll ask you to take your Dgrin and SmugMug account elsewhere.

But I'd rather have you as a a customer though.

Now, to directly answer your question.

I. Don't. Know.

Whether you choose to believe that our engineers, CEO, and product manager read this info, and process it, take all suggestions to heart, improve our product, fix bugs, and more, that's up to you.

Enough with the nonsense- let's move on to improving SmugMug, discussing photography and things photographic, and handling customer support issues.

Are you in, or out?

Mike Lane · February 8, 2007

imageinc wrote:

I'm speechless.

Dear lord, please let this be the truth.

greenpea · February 8, 2007

Just thought I would say that I still haven't heard anything from Comcast yet.

The tech support person at Comcast did feel as though the issue needed to be looked at by Comcast's engineers, and he promised me he would let me know as soon as they figure out anything.

If I do hear anything back from comcast, I will post back to this thread.

Has anyone else contacted comcast tech support? or AOL tech support?

mkress65 · February 8, 2007

greenpea wrote:

Just thought I would say that I still haven't heard anything from Comcast yet.

The tech support person at Comcast did feel as though the issue needed to be looked at by Comcast's engineers, and he promised me he would let me know as soon as they figure out anything.

If I do hear anything back from comcast, I will post back to this thread.

Has anyone else contacted comcast tech support? or AOL tech support?

I have not yet contact AOL tech support on behalf of my mother in law -- I've asked her to forward the "junk" part of the email to me and then I'll probably either contact AOL or have her do so.

EDIT: for whatever its worth, I've checked this issue in Gmail, hotmail, yahoo and comcast; I am only having the problem in the web based Comcast reader. The others come through just fine, both at their website as well as in Thunderbird. I also reported this in the bug report thread to make sure that the issue didn't get lost in case this thread became inactive.

Andy · February 8, 2007

papajay wrote:

I am using comcast as my ISP, and IE6.

My email share recipients at aol

OK so here's the deal with AOL. Webmail works fine, but the AOL proprietary email shows garbage.

I'm seeing what can be done on our end to make it look good for the AOL client software users, too.

Stay tuned.... and thanks for your patience, all!

mkress65 · February 8, 2007

mkress65 wrote:

EDIT: for whatever its worth, I've checked this issue in Gmail, hotmail, yahoo and comcast; I am only having the problem in the web based Comcast reader. The others come through just fine, both at their website as well as in Thunderbird. I also reported this in the bug report thread to make sure that the issue didn't get lost in case this thread became inactive.

I spoke too soon. I actually receive nothing at all at Hotmail. Not even an empty email. I'm sure this is a known issue though, I just didn't double check in Hotmail before posting the above and didn't want to give false information.

Andy · February 8, 2007

mkress65 wrote:

I spoke too soon. I actually receive nothing at all at Hotmail. Not even an empty email. I'm sure this is a known issue though, I just didn't double check in Hotmail before posting the above and didn't want to give false information.

I am sorry you are having trouble with your Hotmail email shares. I will help. Send your email addy to me, ATTN: Andy to our help desk, we'll send you a test email to your hotmail. Hotmail was tested fine by us, thoroughly. Perhaps there's a setting for you to check? Did you look in your spam folder?

mkress65 · February 8, 2007

Andy wrote:

I am sorry you are having trouble with your Hotmail email shares. I will help. Send your email addy to me, ATTN: Andy to our help desk, we'll send you a test email to your hotmail. Hotmail was tested fine by us, thoroughly. Perhaps there's a setting for you to check? Did you look in your spam folder?

1) I checked the spam filter, it is not there
2) I sent 2 test invitations several hours apart, neither have arrived in my inbox or spam filter
3) I sent 1 test message from my gmail account to hotmail and it arrived within seconds.

I will send my hotmail email address to the Helpdesk.

Andy · February 8, 2007

greenpea wrote:

Has anyone else contacted comcast tech support? or AOL tech support?

Keep on Comcast, please - it really helps when it's a customer writing them, versus us. I've lobbed an email their way, too.

AOL - we're working on that. But greenpea, you said your Mom could see your email fine in AOL's email client- do you know which version she has?

Andy · February 8, 2007

mkress65 wrote:

1) I checked the spam filter, it is not there
2) I sent 2 test invitations several hours apart, neither have arrived in my inbox or spam filter
3) I sent 1 test message from my gmail account to hotmail and it arrived within seconds.

I will send my hotmail email address to the Helpdesk.

Sent an email share to your hotmail - and the same email was sent to 3 other hotmail accounts, all received it just fine.... Please verify.

Issue with email invitations

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