This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not...

[harmonicalessons]

I receive plain text notification emails from Miva including Weiland's Customer Account Manager. When I try to forward any of these emails from MS Entourage on a Mac 10.4.11 machine, it creates a MIME mess:

> This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible. --B_3326527681_3475678 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding:

I only have this problem with plain text emails sent from Miva 5.5, I do not have this issue with plain text emails from any other source (contact forms, Authorize.net, etc.)

Aside from replacing Entourage, any solutions to this Miva specific issue?

Thanks,
Dave
http://www.harmonicastore.com/

[harmonicalessons]

Re: This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not...

Rick, or anybody from Miva have an answer to this issue?

Thanks,
Dave

[Rick Wilson]

Re: This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not...

No, I use a Mac (and formerly Entourage but it's buggy) and I've never heard of this issue.

Remik might have some ideas? Remik?

[d_host]

Re: This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not...

Entourage is a Microsoft product, I wouldn't expect it to actually... you know.... work properly. Dump that thing. Even the stock Apple Mail is better, but there are also other choices for handling email that you may like (Postbox, Thunderbird, etc).

If you read the above as Microsoft bashing, you are perhaps half-way right. I have just never seen any Microsoft apps for the Mac that work right (Office 2008 included in this bunch). Dare I remind anyone about IE for the Mac, or their MSN client? Even their Remote Desktop for Mac crashes every now and then, and all it does is push VNC screens back and forth. The good thing is there are plenty of good quality apps out there that work much better and are much more polished, and very often - completely free or very inexpensive.

[Jim McCormick]

Re: This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not...

Hello,

I have never used Entourage but just googling MIME error Entourage brings up a lot of issues. I couldn't find any fix quickly but you might be able to find something. Do the Mac Geniuses at the Apple stores touch MS products on the Mac?

[harmonicalessons]

Re: This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not...

Interesting responses, but unfortunately nothing that will solve this essentially Miva-only email problem. (The problem has always been there, but only became noticeable when I started forwarding Miva generated emails.)

I also have no love in my heart for MS products, but it is a big deal for my business to change email clients. I've been A B-ing Apple Mail and Entourage 2008 for a few months now. I will most likely move to Mail.app, but it has a couple of deal-breakers that don't jive with my current work flow--I'm still trying to find work-arounds for them (hopefully, an AppleScript or two will solve it).

Thanks again,
Dave

[Rick Wilson]

Re: This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not...

Dave,

We're happy to help fix this if it's a Miva issue, just no idea where to start on something I've never heard reported before.

In addition I suspect we're doing something that exposed an Entourage bug, not actually doing something wrong which would make the fix that much more difficult and possibly encouraging us to include a bug in our system to work around a MS bug.

I'm hoping someone else chimes in and provides us some more direction. Also have you tried just sending out text emails to get around the problem?

[harmonicalessons]

Re: This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not...

Dave,

We're happy to help fix this if it's a Miva issue, just no idea where to start on something I've never heard reported before.

In addition I suspect we're doing something that exposed an Entourage bug, not actually doing something wrong which would make the fix that much more difficult and possibly encouraging us to include a bug in our system to work around a MS bug.

I'm hoping someone else chimes in and provides us some more direction. Also have you tried just sending out text emails to get around the problem?

Rick,

No worries. It only happens with Miva at this point for me, but many others on the web have experienced this problem with Entourage, so I know it's not purely a Miva issue but has something to do with the way Miva and some programs send out Plain Text emails. I was just hoping this was something you all knew about and had an easy fix or workaround for.

In the meantime, before I get to changing mail programs, I need to take the content of a Miva-generated email and copy and paste it into a new email before forwarding to my warehouse or a customer. This is a pain, but not unreasonable for a temporary solution.

It's strange though that Entourage does not have this problem with all plain text emails.

Thanks,
Dave

[wcw]

Re: This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not...

What if you forward the html email? Is it ok?

[d_host]

Re: This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not...

Or... is your default preference to write messages in html format, so that when you "forward" a plain text message Entourage converts it to html first (ie: your default preference)? Just a hunch...

[harmonicalessons]

Re: This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not...

Or... is your default preference to write messages in html format, so that when you "forward" a plain text message Entourage converts it to html first (ie: your default preference)? Just a hunch...

Bill and Remik,

Thanks for your suggestions, but I've exhausted all the options and pref changes to get this to work (I've been messing with this off and on for months). It just doesn't work properly. It's time for a new email client.

When I get the new MacBook Pro (sometime after the upcoming developer conference), I will most likely switch over to Apple Mail. My major complaint with Apple Mail is that it doesn't allow the user to edit received mail. This is a problem because I routinely change the Subjects in my Miva and contact form emails to something other than the generic Subject that gets sent out. There are workarounds for this problem (AppleScripts, etc.), but they are a pain and not nearly as easy to use as hitting the "edit" button in Entourage.

Thanks again,
Dave

[d_host]

Re: This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not...

1. You do know you can change the default subject lines in the forms you use on your web site and in MM admin, right? Change things at the source where the email is generated to suit your particular needs, rather than manually trying to fix the info once it's already generated, sent and delivered to your inbox.

2. Editing what is really INCOMING email is a terrible, terrible thing to do. Imagine if you "edited" an email from your bank letting you know you got a $100,000,000 deposit into your account, and then sued the bank because your email (which you doctored!) says something other than your bank sent you and you quit your day job because of it - and they wouldn't give you all that money. One should never, ever have the ability to edit incoming email in any way, shape or form. If you think that's a "feature" of Entourage, I'll call it an outright criminal tool if it does have this option. Email is oftentimes used as evidence, even in simple things like chargeback disputes, so you want to make sure you do not have the ability to tamper something like this. We've successfully used email notes in such chargeback claims, and I'm glad it's not an easy or common option in other email clients.

[harmonicalessons]

Re: This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not...

1. You do know you can change the default subject lines in the forms you use on your web site and in MM admin, right? Change things at the source where the email is generated to suit your particular needs, rather than manually trying to fix the info once it's already generated, sent and delivered to your inbox.

2. Editing what is really INCOMING email is a terrible, terrible thing to do. Imagine if you "edited" an email from your bank letting you know you got a $100,000,000 deposit into your account, and then sued the bank because your email (which you doctored!) says something other than your bank sent you and you quit your day job because of it - and they wouldn't give you all that money. One should never, ever have the ability to edit incoming email in any way, shape or form. If you think that's a "feature" of Entourage, I'll call it an outright criminal tool if it does have this option. Email is oftentimes used as evidence, even in simple things like chargeback disputes, so you want to make sure you do not have the ability to tamper something like this. We've successfully used email notes in such chargeback claims, and I'm glad it's not an easy or common option in other email clients.

Please consider this topic closed. We're getting into tangents here that I don't have the time or interest to address.

Thanks for everyone's posts,
Dave

[harmonicalessons]

Re: This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not...

Rick,

I still have this problem with Miva generated emails. I'm now on a new Mac Book Pro using Entourage and this appears to be the only problem I can't solve or find a simple workaround for--I just can't forward Miva emails to Mac Users. Apple Mail has separate usability issues that keep me from moving to it (plus a ton of time involved moving 10 years of business email, Drafts, 12 accounts, etc).

Has anyone else mentioned this problem since I started this post months ago?

Thanks,
Dave

[Rick Wilson]

Re: This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not...

No I have not heard of this other than from you. Sorry.