Broken links in emails downloaded from Yahoo

[pcbbc]

Strange one this, I have an email with some broken links in them - but only when viewed in POPPeeper. If I view the mail via Yahoo Webmail, the links are correct.

The broken links in POPPeeper are all missing the "." character from the domain name in a link to https://delighted.com, and always where the "." is at the start of a "line" in the raw message. Dots that appear in URLs elsewhere in the message are unaffected.

On inspecting the raw message in POPPeeper (saved to eml) this is what I am seeing:

Code: Select all

color=3D"#ffffff" width=3D"42" height=3D"40"><a href=3D"https://delighted=
com/e/en/c/YH84xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxp7Sl/10/2Ixxxxkt" style=3D"display:block;=

color=3D"#ffffff" width=3D"42" height=3D"40"><a href=3D"https://delighted=
com/e/en/c/YH84xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxp7Sl/9/14xxxxbD" style=3D"display:block;l=

Notice how the "." is missing from the start of the line, making it one character shorter?

But if I look at the same mail in Yahoo (via WebMail) the dot is still present:

Code: Select all

color=3D"#ffffff" width=3D"42" height=3D"40"><a href=3D"https://delighted=
.com/e/en/c/YH84xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxp7Sl/10/2Ixxxxkt" style=3D"display:block;=

color=3D"#ffffff" width=3D"42" height=3D"40"><a href=3D"https://delighted=
.com/e/en/c/YH84xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxp7Sl/9/14xxxxbD" style=3D"display:block;l=

(Please note I have obfuscated the personal UIDs in the URLs with x's, but other than that the text is exactly as I am seeing it).

Obviously the missing dot breaks the URL when the message is viewed in POPPeeper, which is actually how I noticed the problem!

Latest version of POPPepper (4.3.0.0) installed, and Yahoo mail setup with Server Type POP3 and SSL/TLS connection.

[spc3rd]

Hi pcbbc,

Sorry to hear of the issue you're having. The same problem you are describing is one which has been experienced by another member within the past few days. Like you, the issue involves using Yahoo with the Server Type set to POP3. Please review the topic at the following link:

http://www.esumsoft.com/Forums/viewtopi ... 855#p33855.

In particular, note the last reply by Jeff, in which he describes his findings and recommendation, to resolve the problem.

He and other members of the Esumsoft Team should be along later to further review your topic and provide their comments.

Thank you & hope this helps,

[pcbbc]

Thanks Pete.

I too have just independently concluded this was somehow down to this part of RFC 2821 "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol"....

Code: Select all

4.5.2 Transparency

   Without some provision for data transparency, the character sequence
   "<CRLF>.<CRLF>" ends the mail text and cannot be sent by the user.
   In general, users are not aware of such "forbidden" sequences.  To
   allow all user composed text to be transmitted transparently, the
   following procedures are used:

   -  Before sending a line of mail text, the SMTP client checks the
      first character of the line.  If it is a period, one additional
      period is inserted at the beginning of the line.

   -  When a line of mail text is received by the SMTP server, it checks
      the line.  If the line is composed of a single period, it is
      treated as the end of mail indicator.  If the first character is a
      period and there are other characters on the line, the first
      character is deleted.

So good to know who to blame! Chances of some support from Yahoo - nill I would say!
I will try moving to IMAP as suggested.

Thanks.

[spc3rd]

Thanks very much for the update & additional analysis on your end, pcbbc!

Feel free to post back if you encounter any further issues.

Cheers!

[Jeff]

I had been wondering if this wasn't an issue I had seen before. But 2 reports in as many days suggests that it is a recent development, so if I *had* seen it before, it was either someone else or Yahoo re-introduced the problem. Fortunately, the same problem does not exist in imap.