Email message is blank but it appears when forwarded

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LloydEwing
Posts: 5
Joined: August 28th, 2007, 7:42 pm
Location: Austin Texas U.S.A.

Email message is blank but it appears when forwarded

Post by LloydEwing »

I received a very strange E-mail with no subject and no message. I thought it was just spam, but when I clicked to forward the E-mail, the message in the E-mail was visible in the forwarded message. I do not see any message when I look at the messages source (View > Message Source Ctrl+U).

What is going on here? Is this some kind of SMS message that was sent to an E-mail address? Do I need to install an Add-on for Thunderbird so I can see this kind of message?

This is similar to what I saw when I forwarded the message:
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2017 17:38:30 -0500 (CDT)
From: 5125551212@mms.att.net
To: myemailaddr@gmx.com

Hey lloyd it's jeremy. My band the duckanes is playing at Oskar
blues today from 630 to 830. Just thought I'd let you know.
My Thunderbird is version 52.1.1 (32-bit)

Thanks for the help,
Lloyd
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Daifne
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Joined: July 31st, 2005, 9:17 pm
Location: Where the Waters Meet, Wisconsin

Re: Email message is blank but it appears when forwarded

Post by Daifne »

Moving to Thunderbird Support
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tanstaafl
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Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: Email message is blank but it appears when forwarded

Post by tanstaafl »

Yes. MMS is a enhanced type of SMS.

The sender probably sent you a MMS message using a smartphone. When that happens the From: address looks like a phone number followed by the carriers domain. I've run into something similar with a message sent from a iPhone. Using MMS rather than normal email creates a email message but since it had to go through a gateway to become a real email message it gets a weird MIME content-type (application/smil) which prevents a subject or a visible message body. However, if you look at the raw message source using Control-U or view -> message source you will see the original message body.
LloydEwing
Posts: 5
Joined: August 28th, 2007, 7:42 pm
Location: Austin Texas U.S.A.

Re: Email message is blank but it appears when forwarded

Post by LloydEwing »

tanstaafl wrote: However, if you look at the raw message source using Control-U or view -> message source you will see the original message body.
As I said, I used View -> Message Source to view the message source and there is NOT any message I can read in the original message body.

The contents of the message body only becomes visible after the message is forwarded, and it is only visible in the forwarded message.

Does this question need to be reported as a bug in Thunderbird? I wonder if the ability to handle this kind of message could some new functionality in Thunderbird that has not been completely implemented yet?

Thanks!
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tanstaafl
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Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: Email message is blank but it appears when forwarded

Post by tanstaafl »

If its not in the raw message source I have problems seeing how it suddenly gets added just because you forwarded it. I suspect it was always there, you didn't see it for some unknown reason when using view -> message source, and when you forwarded it inline, that made it visible. I still have the MMS message I got and when I forward it inline that makes the hidden message text visible. I suggest you use a browser and webmail and look at the raw message source again, to see if it looks the same as with Thunderbird.

The basic problem is that a MMS message doesn't follow the convention of email messages. MMS is a protocol designed to send multimedia content to and from mobile phones over a cellular network, so it is not surprising that a desktop email client doesn't have additional features built-in to display it correctly. The only reason you even got a email message was the gateway converted the MMS message to a email message. I wouldn't report it as a Thunderbird bug, they don't claim to support SMS or MMS. The AT&T gateway should have done a better job of converting the MMS message.

The MMS message (that I got) basically has a empty "application/smil" body part followed by a plain text attachment with the message body text. There is nothing to display as far as Thunderbird is concerned because the first body part was empty and the attachment didn't have headers indicating it was a inline attachment. However, if you chose "view -> display attachment inline" (which is risky because that opens every attachment automatically, and attachments are the biggest security risk) it will display the text in the attachment.
DN123ABC
Posts: 695
Joined: January 9th, 2017, 10:10 am

Re: Email message is blank but it appears when forwarded

Post by DN123ABC »

Try changing the size of the window. Just double click the title bar, or drag one of the sides to resize it. I have this happen, and it seems to not display sometimes, and changing the size makes it "redraw".
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