problem with mail attachments

[vtprinz]

I have an email account from my university set up in Mail as an IMAP account (per the university's instructions) and lately every time I get an email with an attachment in it, I just see a jumbled mess of text in the email, with no way of downloading the actual file. It seems like it happened only for a few attachments at the beginning (about a month ago) so I just thought it was a glitch, but now it's happening nearly every time.

Is there anything on my end that can be done (or that I'm doing wrong) or has my university screwed something up on their end (it doesn't happen with my gmail POP account)?

 

[seabass1213]

Hello, Sometimes there can be problems in software, have tried doing a software update? Sometimes that could be a problem, or maybe the software uploaded to your computer can be glitched or your mail server can be a little messed up. Try that.

 

[vtprinz]

Hello, Sometimes there can be problems in software, have tried doing a software update? Sometimes that could be a problem, or maybe the software uploaded to your computer can be glitched or your mail server can be a little messed up. Try that.

I'm running 10.5.2 and all software updates have been installed. I don't know what to do if the server is messed up, and I haven't installed any software since this started happening. In fact, it's happening on both my iMac and iBook, although sometimes an attachment will show up fine on my iBook but not on my iMac (just shows jumbled text).

 

[MacFanBoyIIe]

Some of these more difficult questions are better asked on Apple Discussions instead of here. There are great techies here at MR, but I've seen some real nerds hanging out at those forums! (That's a compliment.)

 

[seabass1213]

Thank you for your reply, I'm guessing that the problem could be that maybe the person who sent you the attachemnt, could have fonts not downloaded on your computer. The other person could have downloaded maybe extra fonts for mac or windows, so that might be the problem. Try having your friend send you a attachment in regular font that a mac has. Hopefully that works for you.

 

[mad jew]

I don't think it's a font issue. Are the emails all coming from a similar source (uni email accounts or something)? Has it all worked normally before?

 

[vtprinz]

I don't think it's a font issue. Are the emails all coming from a similar source (uni email accounts or something)? Has it all worked normally before?

Actually, yes, it's always happened with attachments coming from another university email account. However, most emails outside of the university come to my gmail account, so it's hard to necessarily say that it only happens with the uni accounts. And it seems rather sporadic. The same person could send two emails to me, both with attachments, and one will work fine while the other doesn't. This only started about a month or so ago, worked fine before, and seems to be getting worse (or maybe I'm just getting more attachments lately, not sure)

 

[mad jew]

Try testing this by getting a friend outside of uni to send you an email with an attachment.

 

[seabass1213]

Ok, I have a feeling you Mail could have a glitch in it, the next process which i know could take almost days over forums, so i recommend you go to your closest apple retail store. But also you try getting e-mails from a diffferent server and area, and see if the attachments work. If all works, then it has to be fonts, if the words in like a chinese type of language. Hope this helps.
-Mac Geek