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Probable bug: Emailed vcard attachment can't be seen or saved

  • 2 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by OPunWide

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I have data in an email that should be seen as an attachment, but Thunderbird doesn't give me a way to access it or any indication that the data exists.

iPhone exports its contacts as a multi-contact vcard (.vcf) file. This file was mailed to me, and I tried both a hotmail and a gmail address. The data is visible as an attachment at both sites.

When the emails come to Thunderbird, there is no data visible as an attachment, or even as an image. There is nothing to indicate that there is data in the email. At first I thought that anti-virus software might have mistakenly removed it.

However, looking at the message source, the data exists -- there is a base64 section that starts like this:

Content-Type: text/x-vcard; name="MyContacts-2017-06-04-140219-178.vcf" Content-Description: MyContacts-2017-06-04-140219-178.vcf Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="MyContacts-2017-06-04-140219-178.vcf"; size=328289; creation-date="Sun, 04 Jun 2017 21:02:58 GMT"; modification-date="Sun, 04 Jun 2017 21:02:58 GMT" Content-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

It seems that Tbird is just not recognizing the attachment, so there is no "Save as..." or anything similar. Any ideas?

I have had Apple-using people send me files in the past that I didn't get, and this makes me wonder if this could have been happening in other cases but I never thought to blame Tbird.

I have data in an email that should be seen as an attachment, but Thunderbird doesn't give me a way to access it or any indication that the data exists. iPhone exports its contacts as a multi-contact vcard (.vcf) file. This file was mailed to me, and I tried both a hotmail and a gmail address. The data is visible as an attachment at both sites. When the emails come to Thunderbird, there is no data visible as an attachment, or even as an image. There is nothing to indicate that there is data in the email. At first I thought that anti-virus software might have mistakenly removed it. However, looking at the message source, the data exists -- there is a base64 section that starts like this: Content-Type: text/x-vcard; name="MyContacts-2017-06-04-140219-178.vcf" Content-Description: MyContacts-2017-06-04-140219-178.vcf Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="MyContacts-2017-06-04-140219-178.vcf"; size=328289; creation-date="Sun, 04 Jun 2017 21:02:58 GMT"; modification-date="Sun, 04 Jun 2017 21:02:58 GMT" Content-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 It seems that Tbird is just not recognizing the attachment, so there is no "Save as..." or anything similar. Any ideas? I have had Apple-using people send me files in the past that I didn't get, and this makes me wonder if this could have been happening in other cases but I never thought to blame Tbird.

All Replies (2)

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looks like a bug to me... one that may well have existed since version three. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=583572

Change the view attachments inline on the view menu to turn the option off as a workaround.

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Thanks Matt. It solves how to get to the data.

It doesn't solve that there is no indication that there is data to get. Had I not been expecting there to be an attachment I never would have known.

I'll consider this closed since the bug you linked to is this same issue. I don't see much point in my creating a bugzilla account to comment on a 7-year old bug. Thanks also for refreshing interest in the bug at the link you provided.