Exchange 2003 receiving mail as plaintext
Hi I'm having an issue where emails on exchange 2003 SP2 (on SBS 2003) are being received from various senders in a plaintext format when they should be decoded as base64. I have forwarded one of the affected emails to myself and another user, I have also viewed the email in exchange web access and the message content remains the same. Here is a sample of one of the problematic messages: This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------_=_NextPart_001_01CB7A86.1523BD59 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 SGkgV2lsbA0KDQpJIGFtIGF2YWlsYWJsZSBmb3IgYSBkaXNjdXNzaW9uIGFmdGVyIDQgd (continuation of jumbled letters)... ------_=_NextPart_001_01CB7A86.1523BD59-- Any suggestions?
November 4th, 2010 1:27pm

On Thu, 4 Nov 2010 17:22:48 +0000, michael_coreit wrote: >Hi I'm having an issue where emails on exchange 2003 SP2 (on SBS 2003) are being received from various senders in a plaintext format when they should be decoded as base64. I have forwarded one of the affected emails to myself and another user, I have also viewed the email in exchange web access and the message content remains the same. > > > >Here is a sample of one of the problematic messages: > >This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------_=_NextPart_001_01CB7A86.1523BD59 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 SGkgV2lsbA0KDQpJIGFtIGF2YWlsYWJsZSBmb3IgYSBkaXNjdXNzaW9uIGFmdGVyIDQgd > >(continuation of jumbled letters)... > >------_=_NextPart_001_01CB7A86.1523BD59-- > >Any suggestions? This happens on ALL e-mail? The Content-Type says it's text/plain, not text/html. Do you have anything between the Internet and Exchange that set up to remove HTML content frm messages? --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP
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November 4th, 2010 5:58pm

No it doesn't happen on all emails, I don't believe there is anything between the sender's smtp server and mine.
November 5th, 2010 6:10am

On Fri, 5 Nov 2010 10:05:33 +0000, michael_coreit wrote: >No it doesn't happen on all emails, I don't believe there is anything between the sender's smtp server and mine. You need a way to see what those messages look like as they arrive at your server. You can install this archive sink on the Virtual Server you use for inbound messages: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/871110 Just be sure you have enough disk space to save all the messages. Uninstall the sink after you get a copy of a message you think should be in HTML. Then open the .eml file in notepad and have a look at the MIME body parts. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP
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November 5th, 2010 10:24pm

I added the sink but I'm not getting any logged messages.
November 15th, 2010 1:58pm

On Mon, 15 Nov 2010 18:52:46 +0000, michael_coreit wrote: >I added the sink but I'm not getting any logged messages. Did you read the KB article? See steps 4 and 5. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP
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November 15th, 2010 2:52pm

After restarting the IIS admin service I got a few logged messages come through. In this message we get lots of =2D symbols in the message. This is the start of one of our problematic messages: Received: from mail pickup service by our-domain.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Fri, 19 Nov 2010 07:45:59 +0000 thread-index: AcuHvc6uaV6F55idQhiUTbDQmzlavg== Return-Path: <sender@hotmail.com> Cc: Bcc: Delivery-Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 08:33:28 +0100 Received-SPF: pass (mxeu1: domain of hotmail.com designates xx.xx.xx.xx as permitted sender) client-ip=xx.xx.xx.xx; envelope-from=sender@hotmail.com; helo=snt0-omc3-s50.snt0.hotmail.com; Return-Path: <sender@hotmail.com> Message-ID: <54B9B78FA31D47FD82D47EAE3E5746A2@our-domain.local> X-Originating-IP: [xx.xxx.xxx.xxx] Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" From: "Our Sender" <sender@hotmail.com> To: <our.user@our-domain.com> Subject: RE: As Discussed X-Mailer: Microsoft CDO for Exchange 2000 Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 07:45:59 -0000 Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <2503F903114A2C48AEDBD20565AF9E984DE9DF@SERVER.our-domain.local> References: <2503F903114A2C48AEDBD20565AF9E984DE9DF@SERVER.our-domain.local> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-OriginalArrivalTime: 19 Nov 2010 07:33:25.0338 (UTC) FILETIME=[0D16A3A0:01CB87BC] Content-Class: urn:content-classes:message Priority: normal Envelope-To: our.user@our-domain.com X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.3790.4325 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --_5b8401c9-e921-4ae6-9461-ecfae25ad3af_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Morning Andy=2C =20 My experience
November 19th, 2010 5:01am

On Fri, 19 Nov 2010 10:00:19 +0000, michael_coreit wrote: >After restarting the IIS admin service I got a few logged messages come through. In this message we get lots of =2D symbols in the message. > >This is the start of one of our problematic messages: Can you explain how this message arrives at your Exchange server? The sender claims to be in the hotmail domain but the message-id says it's your domain. That would mean that the message arrived at your server without the message-id header. I don't think that't the normal behavior for hotmail. Yet the SPF information, which you've hidden for some reason (are you afraid that hotmail might get more spam???) says the message really did come from a hotmail server. There's only one "Received:" header in the message, and that's from the pickup directory on your server. There's no "Received:" header there from your server, which should have been inserted when the message was received from hotmail. There's a "X-Mailer:" header that says the message was created by "Microsoft CDO for Exchange 2000". That's a bit odd. At this point it seems that the message has been handled by some other MTA, possibly your anti-spam or anti-virus software, headers have been removed, and the message dropped into the Exchange server's pickup directory. The "Cc:" header is empty. The "Bcc:" header is not only empty but it's present and it shouldn't be if you're receiving the message (it's supposed to be there when you send the message, but the sending MUA should remove it). If all of your message text is using only the 1st 128 (of the possible 256) characters (which it seems to be since the encoding is set to 7BIT), then the "charset="iso-8859-1" should be changed to charset="us-ascii". That should remove most (but not all) of the need for using quoted-printable encoding. If the message is entirely text-based there's no need to use MIME, either (unless you like complexity). Quoted-printable encoding is useful if the message is passed through other software that might mistakenly translate some characters, or if that other software does some sort of line-wrapping and you want the original format to be preserved. The MIME header "Content-Type:" in the message headers should probably include a " boundary="_5b8401c9-e921-4ae6-9461-ecfae25ad3af_"; part, too. >Received: from mail pickup service by our-domain.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Fri, 19 Nov 2010 07:45:59 +0000 >thread-index: AcuHvc6uaV6F55idQhiUTbDQmzlavg== >Return-Path: <sender@hotmail.com> >Cc: >Bcc: >Delivery-Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 08:33:28 +0100 >Received-SPF: pass (mxeu1: domain of hotmail.com designates xx.xx.xx.xx as permitted sender) client-ip=xx.xx.xx.xx; envelope-from=sender@hotmail.com; helo=snt0-omc3-s50.snt0.hotmail.com; >Return-Path: <sender@hotmail.com> >Message-ID: <54B9B78FA31D47FD82D47EAE3E5746A2@our-domain.local> >X-Originating-IP: [xx.xxx.xxx.xxx] >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Content-Type: text/plain; > charset="iso-8859-1" >From: "Our Sender" <sender@hotmail.com> >To: <our.user@our-domain.com> >Subject: RE: As Discussed >X-Mailer: Microsoft CDO for Exchange 2000 >Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 07:45:59 -0000 >Importance: Normal >In-Reply-To: <2503F903114A2C48AEDBD20565AF9E984DE9DF@SERVER.our-domain.local> >References: <2503F903114A2C48AEDBD20565AF9E984DE9DF@SERVER.our-domain.local> >MIME-Version: 1.0 >X-OriginalArrivalTime: 19 Nov 2010 07:33:25.0338 (UTC) FILETIME=[0D16A3A0:01CB87BC] >Content-Class: urn:content-classes:message >Priority: normal >Envelope-To: our.user@our-domain.com >X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.3790.4325 > >This is a multi-part message in MIME format. > >--_5b8401c9-e921-4ae6-9461-ecfae25ad3af_ >Content-Type: text/plain; > charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable > >Morning Andy=2C >=20 My experience --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP
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November 19th, 2010 12:37pm

Thank you for your analysis, I figured out what was causing this issue in the end - it turned out to be our anti-spam software (AVG Internet Security 2011). Specifically I solved it by adding the Exchsrvr folder to the Resident Shield exclusions list.
November 25th, 2010 7:53pm

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