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When people reply to my email, the content of the message is empty - I can see it on my iphone for example but not in Thunderbird on my pc or laptop

  • 12 replies
  • 6 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Matt

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I can send emails and receive them without problem, however when people answer to my email, on many occassion their email come with empty body. When I look at the same email on my iphone, the body from their reply is clearly there. The same things happen on both my pc and laptop, PC running clean installed windows 7 Ultimate 64, laptop windows 7 pro 64.

Any idea what can cause such thing? no add ons beside more columns installed, and the problem doesn't happens necessary with different people - sometime the same person answer one email and it comes OK, another time the same person answers the email and it comes with empty body

I can send emails and receive them without problem, however when people answer to my email, on many occassion their email come with empty body. When I look at the same email on my iphone, the body from their reply is clearly there. The same things happen on both my pc and laptop, PC running clean installed windows 7 Ultimate 64, laptop windows 7 pro 64. Any idea what can cause such thing? no add ons beside more columns installed, and the problem doesn't happens necessary with different people - sometime the same person answer one email and it comes OK, another time the same person answers the email and it comes with empty body

All Replies (12)

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When you get that message, if you hit reply or forward, is the content visible again?

This has been reported in Firefox on some webmail sites when a message contains deeply nested tags. By deeply nested I mean like the following x10

<font>
  <font>
    <font>
      <font>
        <font>Hello
        </font>
      </font>
    </font>
  </font>
</font>

If the problem fits that pattern, I don't know whether there is a solution but perhaps Thunderbird has a better workaround than Firefox.

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No, the content is not visible. Very problematic issue because instead of using the pc or laptop, i have to use my cell phone to read the messages. I tired to solve this problem by completely uninstalling firefox, reboot, clean install the latest version, the problem is still the same. After that I took drastic measures by reinstalling windows (new fresh clean installation), than firefox, the problem still there.

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I have forgotten to say that also sometime when a mail comes in (not a reply to my mail but a first time mail, not junk) the body is also empty.

However, when I click to view the message source, the text of message is there. So it look like there may be a problem with displaying the message.

Hope this helps.

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Do you have a winmail.dat attachment that indicates a poorly configured copy of outlook (default actually it is not an email program really)

https://support.mozilla.org/kb/what-winmaildat-attachment

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Hi Matt, the winmail.dat file is attached when the user specifies Microsoft's old "Rich Text Format" instead of Plain Text or HTML. It should be rare for users of Outlook 2003 and newer.

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No, I don't, and I don't use Outlook

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I'm pretty new to Thunderbird, so I'm not aware of any quick way to view just the text of an HTML message.

Is there any pattern to the mail service or mail software which delivers/generates blank-body messages? Maybe that will help in identifying the issue.

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@Jscher2000.

It is still a frequent problem. We are dealing with people who are still using Windows XP some still using their trusty 2000 versions.

As for 2003. The same stupid setting is available in outlook 2013 see http://office.microsoft.com/en-001/outlook-help/change-the-message-format-to-html-rich-text-format-or-plain-text-HA102749169.aspx

I will stick to my original statement. Outlook is not an email application. Outlook is an excellent exchange client (its primary purpose) it is also an excellent corporate mail client as long as it is acting as an exchange client. Lotus domino and IBMs websphere have similar abilities and strengths luckily they are not flogged off to the general public as something they are not "a mail client". Outlook is, and does that job in a barely adequate way, providing the general user that is familiar with it's corporate functions a very skewed view of email and how it works.

@sloimpex have you tried right clicking the folder and selecting properties and then repair. Sometime the index get a little screwy and rebuilding it make the invisible visible.

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I am using Firefox and not outlook

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Hi sloimpex, apologies for the distraction. Just to clarify, is the problem viewing mail in:

  • The Thunderbird email client software
  • The Firefox web browser (viewing your mail online)

Or do you get different results in each? (We already know your iPhone mail software can display the message body.)

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I am using only Thunderbird as mail application, When tried to set up the same account with outlook 2007, the same messages that have not been displayed correctly in Thunderbird, they where displayed OK in outlook.

The funny thing is that when I click on View, than message source, I see the text (body) of the message, but I don't see it in the displayed window when I click on the message

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When you get sick of it, you might forward as an attachment one of these blank email to the email address in my profile.