Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Why are programming symbols suddenly interspersed in my email messages?

  • 3 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by jpizzo

more options

About 3 weeks ago, I began getting what look like programming strings interspersed in email messages from one source. No one else who gets email from that source gets them. No other email is affected. They are a combination of

and strings of letters and symbols sometimes every other word or full paragraphs of these.

About 3 weeks ago, I began getting what look like programming strings interspersed in email messages from one source. No one else who gets email from that source gets them. No other email is affected. They are a combination of <BR> <BR> and strings of letters and symbols sometimes every other word or full paragraphs of these.

All Replies (3)

more options

Possibly something to do with malware.

Are other recipients using webmail, or email with security software and you are using something else ?

more options

Did you try a different encoding (View > Character Encoding) ?

Clear the cache and the cookies from sites that cause problems.

  • "Clear the Cache": Tools > Options > Advanced > Network > Offline Storage (Cache): "Clear Now"
  • "Remove the Cookies" from sites causing problems: Tools > Options > Privacy > Cookies: "Show Cookies"

Start Firefox in Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode to check if one of the add-ons is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Tools > Add-ons > Themes).

  • Don't make any changes on the Safe mode start window.

See Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems


There are other things that need attention:

Your above posted system details show outdated plugin(s) with known security and stability risks that you should update.

  1. Shockwave Flash 10.1 r53
  2. Java Plug-in 1.4.2_03 for Netscape Navigator (DLL Helper)

Update the Flash plugin to the latest version.

Update the Java plugin to the latest version.

more options

Re: the first response...this particular email is going to hundreds of others and the webmaster says that he has made no changes. One other person responded that she was having the same problem, but none of the rest.

Re: the second response...I just have to figure out how to do the first part of what you recommend since I'm not all that computer literate. I am in the process of updating the plugins as you suggested. I'll just have to see if that does anything.

Thank you both!!!