Double Spaces In Sent Messages Changed to Question Marks

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JeffLeites
Posts: 113
Joined: April 23rd, 2008, 7:49 pm

Double Spaces In Sent Messages Changed to Question Marks

Post by JeffLeites »

It just started a day or two ago. The double spaces in my sent messages are received by the recipient (including myself) as ??. There is a double question mark for every additional space.

My encoding has not changed.

I have a Windows 10 desktop, notebook, and 2-in-1 tablet. The problem occurs in messages sent from all 3 computers, and I didn't change anything in any of them.

I can't find anything useful with Google.

HELP!!! ](*,)
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tanstaafl
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Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: Double Spaces In Sent Messages Changed to Question Marks

Post by tanstaafl »

Its probably a character encoding problem. The simplest solution might be if both you and the recipient are configured to use UTF-8 when sending/reading. You can change the default encoding in tools -> options -> display -> formatting -> advanced -> text encoding. You'd also want "view -> text encoding" set to Unicode (that's actually UTF-8) as that can override the default settings when reading.
lem3
Posts: 74
Joined: May 15th, 2015, 10:29 am

Re: Double Spaces In Sent Messages Changed to Question Marks

Post by lem3 »

Duplicated here in 52.6.0 and SeaMonkey 2.49.2. Windows 7. I don't think it's an encoding issue, it happens in messages sent to myself. An example:

This followed by a single space. This is followed by a double-space.?? This is followed by three spaces.???? This is more text.
JeffLeites
Posts: 113
Joined: April 23rd, 2008, 7:49 pm

Re: Double Spaces In Sent Messages Changed to Question Marks

Post by JeffLeites »

tanstaafl wrote:Its probably a character encoding problem. The simplest solution might be if both you and the recipient are configured to use UTF-8 when sending/reading. You can change the default encoding in tools -> options -> display -> formatting -> advanced -> text encoding. You'd also want "view -> text encoding" set to Unicode (that's actually UTF-8) as that can override the default settings when reading.
I did get that much from a Google search, but as I said, my encoding hasn't changed. It's UTF on send, and Western on receive, always has been as far as I know. Just for grins, I made both UTF, but got the same results.

I first noticed it yesterday when I got a reply from a friend with my text in the message which had the ??. I've been testing by sending myself test messages.

There must be a clue in that all messages sent from all 3 of my computers using T-Bird contain the question marks. Messages sent via Yahoo are clean.
lem3 wrote:Duplicated here in 52.6.0 and SeaMonkey 2.49.2. Windows 7. I don't think it's an encoding issue, it happens in messages sent to myself. An example:

This followed by a single space. This is followed by a double-space.?? This is followed by three spaces.???? This is more text.

That is my exact problem.
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tanstaafl
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Re: Double Spaces In Sent Messages Changed to Question Marks

Post by tanstaafl »

Please post the raw source of part of a message that has that problem. Use Control-U to view it and then copy and paste an excerpt. This is different from copying and pasteing what you normally see when reading a message.

I can't reproduce it using utf-8 using a string such as abc d f g ༀ ༂༃༇,က တ အ,ᄄᄈᄊᄍᄙᄣ.

Are you using 8-bit characters with umlauts, graves or ....?

What is the Content-Type header set to?
JeffLeites
Posts: 113
Joined: April 23rd, 2008, 7:49 pm

Re: Double Spaces In Sent Messages Changed to Question Marks

Post by JeffLeites »

I don't understand your last two questions.
I looked at what I sent in hex, and the spaces correctly show as x"20".

Here is the source you requested:


This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--------------28C1304AED30D65385347FFA
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

This is a test Double Space.?? This is a test Triple Space.???? End of test.

--------------28C1304AED30D65385347FFA
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

<html>
<head>

<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<font face="Arial">This is a test Double Space.?? This is a test
Triple Space.???? End of test.<br>
</font>
</body>
</html>

--------------28C1304AED30D65385347FFA--


Text from Sent file in Hex:
54 68 69 73 20 69 73 20 61 20 74 65 73 74 20 44 6f 75 62 6c 65 20 53 70 61 63 65 2e 20 20 54 68 69 73 20 69 73 20 61 20 74 65 73 74 20 54 72 69 70 6c 65 20 53 70 61 63 65 2e 20 20 20 45 6e 64 20 6f 66 20 74 65 73 74 2e
brianvlee
Posts: 3
Joined: February 21st, 2018, 11:27 am

Re: Double Spaces In Sent Messages Changed to Question Marks

Post by brianvlee »

Glad you posted this, as I was just about to start a new thread. I've been a happy Thunderbird user for over 10 years, but this just started happening a day or two ago. My encoding for incoming and outgoing is set to UTF-8. Please see the image below, , showing the sent message, source code, and how it views in another email client as the receiver. Thank you for everyone's help in resolving this.

http://clairesdayschool.com/wp-content/ ... ocs/TB.jpg
Last edited by DanRaisch on February 21st, 2018, 3:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Image tags removed to restore page formatting.
lem3
Posts: 74
Joined: May 15th, 2015, 10:29 am

Re: Double Spaces In Sent Messages Changed to Question Marks

Post by lem3 »

No special characters at all. Just double-spacing after the period like I was taught in typing class many, many years ago. This is the content of the message received:

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--------------61F01BD774278DD17C4CD793
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

This is followed by a single space. This is followed by double space.??
This is followed by three spaces.???? This is more text.


--------------61F01BD774278DD17C4CD793
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

<html>
<head>

<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p>This is followed by a single space. This is followed by double
space.?? This is followed by three spaces.???? This is more text.<br>
</p>
</body>
</html>

--------------61F01BD774278DD17C4CD793--
JeffLeites
Posts: 113
Joined: April 23rd, 2008, 7:49 pm

Re: Double Spaces In Sent Messages Changed to Question Marks

Post by JeffLeites »

A NEW CLUE:

If I select my Web Host server (Just Host) to send the message, I receive it correctly without the question marks.
If I use my normal AT&T server, it displays the question marks.

Here is the raw data for the message sent through my Web Host server:

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--------------FBBA83F02FC6009BE3EDB876
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

This is a test Double Space. This is a test Triple Space.  End of test.

--------------FBBA83F02FC6009BE3EDB876
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

<html>
<head>

<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<font face="Arial">This is a test Double Space. This is a test
Triple Space.  End of test.</font>
</body>
</html>

--------------FBBA83F02FC6009BE3EDB876--
lem3
Posts: 74
Joined: May 15th, 2015, 10:29 am

Re: Double Spaces In Sent Messages Changed to Question Marks

Post by lem3 »

Confirmed. Messages sent through my web host either to the host or ATT do not show the corruption.

This is not a cause for joy. Having been down this road before, it could be months before we get Yahoo to even acknowledge the problem they caused, much less fix it.

It's clear they don't want people using email clients. They want us to use webmail where we can be inundated with ads.
brianvlee
Posts: 3
Joined: February 21st, 2018, 11:27 am

Re: Double Spaces In Sent Messages Changed to Question Marks

Post by brianvlee »

lem3 wrote:Confirmed. Messages sent through my web host either to the host or ATT do not show the corruption.

This is not a cause for joy. Having been down this road before, it could be months before we get Yahoo to even acknowledge the problem they caused, much less fix it.

It's clear they don't want people using email clients. They want us to use webmail where we can be inundated with ads.
I'm so glad you figured this out! It was causing me to almost switch email clients, because I kept assuming it was a TB problem. Much appreciated.
JeffLeites
Posts: 113
Joined: April 23rd, 2008, 7:49 pm

Re: Double Spaces In Sent Messages Changed to Question Marks

Post by JeffLeites »

@lem3 - There must be many other people using T-bird or other email clients via AT&T servers. I would think that the problem would be very widespread.
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tanstaafl
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Re: Double Spaces In Sent Messages Changed to Question Marks

Post by tanstaafl »

I had originally tested using a fastmail account. I retested using a yahoo IMAP account using imap.mail.att.net as the server and while the server was dog slow, there was no problem with viewing the message. I then sent from gmail to my yahoo account the string: This is a test Double Space. This is a test Triple Space.  End of test. from JeffLeites's post. No problem with it.

I changed the yahoo IMAP server to imap.mail.yahoo.com, and was prompted for the new password. After logging in I exited and restarted Thunderbird and viewed the message. It still looks okay. Perhaps its a host specific problem with the yahoo server? There are typically more than one host that the name of a mail server can get mapped to. Some cases that can occur due to having them being in different geographic locations, in other cases its because multiple hosts are behind a load balancing router. I ran netstat -f from a console window and the corresponding entry seemed to be:

TCP 192.168.0.101:60320 sky400-2.mail.vip.bf2.yahoo.com:imaps CLOSE_WAIT
JeffLeites
Posts: 113
Joined: April 23rd, 2008, 7:49 pm

Re: Double Spaces In Sent Messages Changed to Question Marks

Post by JeffLeites »

Brian, it looks like you posted a picture of the raw sent message. I think what was requested was the raw code of the received message in you inbox. The message in your sent box looks good, as my received message was when sent using T-Bird via my web host server instead of AT&T's server. Are you using AT&T to send you mail. The good data seems to have the spaces represented as the "A" with a carrot on top, while the bad data show ??.

Thunderbird isn't going to be of much use if AT&T (using Yahoo for handling their email) is mucking with the encoding.
JeffLeites
Posts: 113
Joined: April 23rd, 2008, 7:49 pm

Re: Double Spaces In Sent Messages Changed to Question Marks

Post by JeffLeites »

tanstaafl - Is there anything we can do? I've been using Thunderbird since it was Netscape Communicator. I'd hate to have to change to web mail now.
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