email text attachments (0 bytes)

bricar1--Just came across this  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/312351

bricar1

When you open and close one of those messages, the number in the filename of the attachment is different each time, isn't it?

An email is essentially a container made up from several different parts, and these parts need to be unpacked" to allow Outlook Express to display those parts to you.

When you open and close an email in Outlook Express it firstly extracts a couple of files from the message to your Temporary Internet Files folder, probably in one or more of the sub-folders with a name like "wbkxx.tmp" (where the xx in the file name is an alphanumeric number of 1 or more digits).  Those files will remain there for as long as you have Outlook Express open, even if you close the message.

Any attachments OPENED FROM the attachment field of the message will also be extracted there as separate files.  These normally are extracted to the folder with the file name as they appear in the attachment field of the message.  These files disappear when you close the MESSAGE, whereas the other files mentioned above remain until you close Outlook Express.

This is the reason that jcimarron's linked Microsoft page suggests using ontrol Panel > Internet Options to delete Temporary Internet Files, ie. just in case previous contents in there are conflicting.

Now the above is true for normal attachments like images, zip files, etc.  I have just looked through some old emails where one of the images INSERTED (Note: NOT Attached) into the email does not show, other than the red box with the red X in it.

Although this email has quite a few images INSERTED into it, just one of them is showing that red box where an image should be showing and (not coincidentally) the ONLY attachment in that email is "ATTxxx.jpg".  The numbers (xxx) change randomly when I close and then reopen that email, however I CAN double-click on it and open the image in my default image editing program, whereupon it creates a new Temporary Internet File with the name as it was showing when I opened it.

On inspection of the email, I immediately see that there is an error in the code.  The images that show in the email are shown there using this HTML code (I've cut some of the crappy MS Word and yahoo-centric code out):

<IMG src="cid:1477390453000001@web81703.mail.mud.yahoo.com">

The code that is intended to show the image that FAILS to show is:

<IMG src="cid:1477390453000000@web81703.mail.mud.y! ahoo.com">

Note the "yahoo" is broken where a ! and a space interrupt it?

("CID" Means "ContainerID" and is a the number assigned to each embedded file in an email message so that they have unique references).

Well, correcting that "yahoo" part so it matches the "good" line above shows the image as intended when saved as an *.eml file OR when immediately previewed while the email is still open and under composition ready to forward.

Outlook Express displays attached images files at the very end of the email as though they are embedded, BUT places them below a grey horizontal line that is inserted at the end of the message content.  I could see that not only was the EMBEDDED image showing within the email instead of the red box, but that the ATTACHED image was now also showing as an image below that grey line after the message contents where it HAD NOT done so while the code was wrong.

I can only assume that this code was somehow messed up when received, forwarded, received, and forwarded about 9 times through different mail reading programs before reaching me.  It's not so much HOW this happened that is of interest to your situation, but the fact that THE ONLY image that was unable to be displayed within the email was attached with a random "ATT00xxx.jpg" name.

Look back at what notacomputer& stated in the first comment in this question:

"I believe it's how OE is interpretting additional characters/graphics. Appears more typical when e-mail is sent from a Mac.  If you're viewing your e-mail by Rich text, you may try to change it to Plain text or HTML."

Did you try this?

Consider the results if a portion of code within your spam email was corrupt and therefore the item it was supposed to display couldn't be displayed.  If the file type was unknown, or if Outlook Express didn't recognise the "ContentType" of the embedded (ie. Inserted) file and therefore didn't know what to do with it, then it (or any of the ISP mail servers it has passed through) MAY attach it as an innocuous *.txt file.

Something like embedded *.CSS coding not recognised correctly could be attached as it is essentially text-based.  There are a number of different types of content that could potentially be interpreted as text-based.

Of course, in your case this assumes that the issue is with the emails as received by you, and not with your computer.  That may then infer (as jcimarron was wondering), that the spam messages are from the same original source, or are at the very least passing through the same channels that may be messing up the code the same way before you receive them.

The way I analysed my received email and spotted the problem was as follows:

1. Opened the message and clicked the "Forward" button.
2. The attachment was still be there while in the "Edit" mode.

Tip:
If you don't see 3 tabs along the bottom of the message named Edit, Source, and Preview, then you can click the View" menu and click on "Source Edit" to tick it and show these tabs.

3. Clicked the "Source" tab and allowed all the code to display and settle down so that it showed different sections of code in different colours.
4. Read down through the code looking for obvious coding errors and was able to see it immediately as I passed my eyes over it.

I would be tempted to suggest this for you to do by way of analysis, but I'm not sure whether you have any idea about what is correct codeg and what would be a coding error in HTML and other MS-Office-centric code.  I'm by no means an expert in HTML, but I tend to be able to see obvious errors or incomplete code.  Maybe you wouldn't, which isn't a criticism or insult.

I would really be curious to see one of your "ATT00xxx.txt" files attached here.  As I mentioned earlier, I suspect there MAY just be a small fragment of content even though Outlook Express is telling you it is Zero bytes.

I believe that the same type of issue as with my *.jpg file is the most likely cause of the attached *.txt files you are getting, but it isn't any sort of fix.  To be honest, it is my view that this behaviour is unavoidable and caused before these spam messages even arrive in your pop3 mail server.  I'm not sure if you were just looking for a likely explanation, or for some clues to back-trace the sender.

What actually was your intention in asking about this issue?

Regards
Bill