"Can't find image" in an html signature, even when image is referenced to a website, when installing or sending(works in my thunderbird account but not coworker
I have created an html email signature to use for our business. I have successfully created and installed it in outlook, apple mail, and other thunderbird accounts. It is our logo that is a clickable link to our website with personal information next to it in a border less html table. The logo is referenced to our website where the image is saved on a server.
However, today I was helping install it for a co-worker and during installation the logo image appeared to be a broken link and did not show (it showed my alternate text instead). Then when she tried to send it, she received a message that the image couldn't be found would you like to send without it.
We tried installing it as a file saved on the computer and as copy and pasted code into the signature box. Neither option worked. She is not using Windows 7. Is this the problem? Or is there something else?
All Replies (1)
First of all, I'd recommend you store the image locally, compose your signature as an html file in thunderbird, use "Insert image" and check the "attach this image to the message" box. That way the image is encoded into the message and travels with it, and will remain visible to the user regardless of where they are and what they do with the message. If you're sending a naked URL in an image tag then your method potentially requires live access to the 'net.
Now, some of this won't be at all relevant, but here goes....
I feel that email messages should be self-contained and not reliant on external content. They are email, not web pages. Users often like to store email messages verbatim and for indefinite periods, for audit trail purposes. Remote content breaks that.
Having said that, it seems that it should work. Trying it here with my ISP's web server, I find that Thunderbird is quite picky. My website is hosted for free by my ISP, with an ugly name, and uses a redirect to expose it under a domain I paid for.
TB doesn't like www in the URL. Fair enough, it's an image, offered as a resource, not a webpage being served up.
It also doesn't like the redirect. When I use the "raw" ISP host domain-based address, it works fine in emails. But with the pretty URL I'm also seeing some puzzling frame stuff going on that I didn't ask for. This may be confounding TB.
I don't know what the problem is, because the pretty URL, with my paid-for domain and the www and the redirect all works fine when used as an URL in other contexts.
e.g. http://www.ramsden.org.uk/pics/default48.png will work here, but not in TB. But this:
<img moz-do-not-send="true" alt="" src="http://chrisramsden.vfast.co.uk/pics/default48.png" height="48" width="48" >
...does work in TB, and here too:
Go figure.
BTW, that first address should also work without the www but that's because the webserver redirection is set to work with and without.
I also see a lot of trouble in Thunderbird composing clickable links to a shared resource such as a file on our company fileserver. I believe this is deliberate and is part of a security measure that limits the scope of the "chrome" element of the email client. It may also hamper the reading of image files embedded into signatures, perhaps?
Modified by Zenos