Web Mail Blog

Currently when Internet Explorer users compose an HTML message in Web Mail, the Return (Enter) key on the keyboard inserts a paragraph space instead of a single line feed. You are using HTML compose (as opposed to plain text) by default when replying to an HTML message, or if you have started a new message and selected "Color & Graphics" on that screen. This allows formatting the text in your message.

The "doublespace" problem has been reported by a number of users and we intend to get it fixed soon. In the meantime there are a couple of things you can do. The best solution may be to use the Enter key only when you want a new paragraph, and otherwise just allow the compose window to wrap your text automatically as you type. Then it will be single-spaced. Any email viewer your recipient is using is going to wrap the text for them too.

If you need to insert a single line feed, a couple of clever users pointed out on this blog that you can do so by pressing Shift-Enter instead of just the Enter key. That will put in a regular line break instead of a new paragraph. Incidentally, it isn't actually "double-spacing" as some have referred to the problem; if there were simply two line feeds you could backspace off one of them. You can't. It is actually an HTML paragraph tag being inserted.

As far as we know the problem does not occur on other browsers, just Internet Explorer. But it will be fixed soon.

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Users report problems when viewing messages sent from Mac Mail software, particularly when the message includes file attachments.

If your sender from Mac Mail attaches the file before they enter the message text, you sometimes won't be able to see the attachment in Web Mail. It seems to only fail on plain text messages, not on HTML text. If they reverse the order and enter their text before they add the file attachment, you will get the attachment just fine. This problem is unique to messages sent from Mac Mail.

There is a related problem where if the Mac Mail sender attaches a file, and then enters HTML text afterward, then sometimes you will get the attachment but won't see the text. Reversing the order when sending fixes it, and it also doesn't seem to occur with plain text, only formatted text. This problem is NOT unique to viewing messages in Web Mail, but happens in most (or all) non-Mac email programs when viewing these messages from Mac Mail, and this one is definitely a bug in Mac Mail. It will happen when viewing the messages in Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express, and most other email programs.

Both of these are due to the unique non-standard way that Mac Mail constructs multi-part messages, and these don't happen with email from other sources. We will try to get it fixed, at least the attachment problem. The text problem mentioned second is in Mac Mail and we may not be able to do a workaround for it. Apple should fix it.

In the meantime, ask senders using Mac Mail to enter their message text first before attaching files instead of the other way around, and there shouldn't be any problems.

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After a number of user reports, we were able to reproduce two bugs that seem to have been introduced in this latest release. We're working on fixing them now. Both are just minor annoyances so it may be a few weeks before we get the fix out, but I wanted to let you know that we are aware of them already.

Here's the two bugs:

• ( FIXED ) - When you have checked the box on the login page for "Remember my login" this prefills your username when you navigate to that page. When you use that feature, the input cursor should load in the password box automatically so that you can begin typing, but it isn't. The cursor is coming up in the username box whether you have that saved or not. So you have to click the password box or press the tab key to put the cursor in the right place. It will take that extra step until we get this fixed.

• ( FIXED ) - When you have changed your Preference setting for the "Signout Destination" and set it to go to the Web Mail login page, that's what you expect to happen. There is one circumstance where this is failing, and the logout is always going to the MyEarthLink page (the other option in Preferences). If you have used the column sorting feature during that session, by clicking on the Sender or Subject column header (or any column) above the message listing, then when you sign out it will go to MyEarthLink regardless of your preference.

I've awarded this second one our "Bizarre Bug of the Year" prize, which began just this year (just today in fact). What does column sorting have to do with the logout preference? I'm sure the developers will figure it out.

Thanks for the reports that helped us find these.

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A few users report that each time they log in to Web Mail, they are presented with the First Time User screen asking for their name, and that this never gets saved and comes back next time.

A temporary solution for this problem is:
After you have completed the login and are in Web Mail, click Preferences / Web Mail Options and scroll to the bottom to the setting for "Your From Name". Make sure that is filled in with the name you want to appear in your messages, and then click the Save button.

That should save your name and prevent the First Time User screen from coming back. In the near future we will fix the bug where the name sometimes isn't being saved from that screen.

If you find that the solution described here does not work, please report it here.

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Users of Norton 360 report getting a popup warning when attempting to access Web Mail, showing:

"There is a problem with this website's security certificate."
"This organization's certificate has been revoked"

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( FIXED )

With the release of Web Mail 5.16.3 we have found a bug that only affects users of Internet Explorer 5.5 or older.

We still try to fully support IE 5.5, but be aware that we no longer test or support IE 5.0. If you are using IE 5.5 you may have a problem with buttons not being visible, including the "Sign In" button on the login page. This will be fixed soon. I apologize for the inconvenience.

If you are using an operating system that can take the upgrade to IE 6.0, that will fix the problem too. And if you can run Firefox or Netscape (at least temporarily), those browsers do not have the problem.

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FIXED

The problem that began today with links in some HTML emails not being clickable, is fixed and being tested now. We should have the fix in production on Thursday afternoon.

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( FIXED )

Some Web Mail problems that were introduced recently are close to being fixed. The two big ones in particular are:

• Forwarding attachments fails for some messages and the recipient doesn't receive the attachment.
  
• Sometimes the spell-check is deleting new text on a reply.

Your feedback and information has been essential to finding and fixing these problems. Thanks to everyone who provided information that helped us find the trouble. And thanks for your patience waiting for them to be fixed.

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( FIXED )

We are working on the problem where users attempt to re-forward attachments that had been forwarded to them, and the recipeint does not receive the attachment. In our testing, there appears to be very specific scenarios where this occurs, and I need your input to help us narrow this down for sure.

At this point the only scenario where we can reproduce this problem is as follows:

1. The message was forwarded to you from a Yahoo account. It was not an original message, but specifically was forwarded to you.
   
2. The message you received contained the forwarded original message as an attachment. That is, you had to click an attachment link in the message you received, in order to see the original content.
   
3. You then forward that message on to someone else, who does not receive the attachment.
   

Any information provided will be helpful, including confirmation of the above scenario. If the above is what happens to you, then comment and let me know. And if there is some other way to produce the problem, let me know that too. Please include your browser version and operating system.

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( FIXED )

Users have reported that sometimes using the Spell Check is deleting the typed message.

We have been able to reproduce one scenario where this will occur, and it is a bug to be fixed. If you receive a plain text message, you click Reply (or Forward) and then you click "Color and Graphics" to change the message type, if you then use Spell Check the new text you entered will be deleted. In our testing if you simply reply and leave the message type as it was in the original (whether plain or html) then the problem doesn't occur.

If there are other scenarios where this problem occurs, please report them here.

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( FIXED )

We have gotten some reports after the fixes that were released Wednesday, that sometimes when forwarding a message with an attachment, the attached files don't reach the recipient.

In our own testing we are not seeing this problem occur. So we need some help tracking down why this is still happening. If this has happened to you after Wednesday 3/28, please comment here under this article, and please provide your operating system and browser version. To get your exact browser version click on Help / About in your browser and let me know the full number shown there. If you can, also please provide an exact file name of an attachment that was not received by the recipient. This is shown in the header area when you view the original message, on the line that says "Attachments:".

Lastly, please indicate if the original message was plain text or HTML. If you aren't sure, you can tell this by looking at the state of the "Plain | Color and Graphics" selector above the message after you click Forward to open the compose view. It will be set to the type of message you are forwarding, with the current type in black and the other option in blue. I want to know the one in black. If you have other details that you think will be helpful in tracking this down, please provide those too. One thing that would be helpful if you happen to know, is what email program the recipient is using to view your message.

Questions about this issue that have come in on the Ask Email guy page so far have not included the details, and since I don't have an answer for you yet they haven't been published.

Thanks for your help. We will try to get this fixed as soon as possible.

UPDATE: after more feedback and much testing, it appears that this problem is mostly confined to forwarding messages that you received as an attachment in the first place. That is, the original sender sends an earthlink user a message with attachments, but sends the whole message as an attached file with nested attachments. You can successfully forward these messages on to others if you choose "As Attachment" when you forward it.

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( FIXED )

(Ed. note - several users have asked about this problem in Ask Email Guy, so I posted the answer here rather than publish the individual questions)

After the release of Web Mail 5.13 on Monday 3/5, a few users reported that the subject lines in Web Mail would disappear or not be clickable. As far as we have been able to determine, this problem is confined to old versions of Mozilla browsers and old versions of Firefox browsers. In every case the issue is fixed by updating to a newer version.

Update Firefox here:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

The problem never occurs on Firefox 2.0. We have a few rare reports of it on Firefox 1.5 if the user has a lot of messages in the Inbox. But if you still have a really old 1.0.x version of Firefox or Mozilla, we can no longer support it, and unfortunately you'll need to get a newer version. We do still fix bugs related to Firefox 1.5, and we will continue to test on it for a while. But we recommend that you update to version 2.0 at the web site above.

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FIXED

After the release of Web Mail 5.12.0 on December 15, a few users have reported that they can't see the Folders list in the left panel. We've found the cause, and it will be fixed soon (early to mid-February).

In that release, the allowed character list for folder names was expanded to include, among other special characters, the apostrophe. This works fine as long as any new folder you create with an apostrophe in the name is also less than 20 characters in length. But if the name is 20 characters or longer, and contains an apostrophe, your folder tree will disappear as soon as you create the new folder. The reason is that for folder names of 20 characters or more, the display is truncated and we show a tooltip on mouseover that displays the full name. It is actually the tooltip part of the script that is choking, and causes the whole tree display to fail.

TO FIX:
If you get in this state, then you can get back to the Folders management view by entering the URL for the folders page in your browser directly (since the link is now hidden from you). Just edit the URL shown in your browser address bar, and replace the part that says "index.jsp" with "folders.jsp" and you will then be back on the folders page, and you can rename or delete the folder causing the trouble.

This bug will be fixed in 5.13, set to release in late February.

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It seems that every time we add an AJAX feature to Web Mail to improve the usability for the vast majority of users, a few users report strange problems with those features being blocked or not working right. These problems almost always turn out to be that some security software running on the user's computer is blocking the use of those features, but doesn't give them any warning or information about what is wrong. Keep reading for instructions on how to fix this problem.

AJAX involves using javascripts and style sheets in creative ways to make web pages more interactive and to not require a full page refresh every time you click on a feature. We have several features built this way, including:

• The folder tree in the left panel - you can expand and collapse the folder tree and any nested branches you create, and these update immediately when clicked without having to refresh the page.

• The Write Message view - when you click this to compose a new message, the view updates immediately without having to refresh the page.

If you encounter either of these problems, there is a very easy fix. Go to Preferences / Web Mail Options and turn on the option to use a "Secure Session". This will encrypt the content to and from your browser, and a side effect is that it "hides" the javascripts and AJAX features from security software like Norton Security, so that they can't block the features from working. If you do choose this option, also be sure to read this post for some more information.

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In the "Ask Email Guy" section of this blog user Paul Camp reported a problem about sending messages to list servers. The problem was that when using Suspect Email blocking (spamBlocker on High setting) if he sent messages to a list he belonged to, the copy that came back to him was caught in the Suspect Email folder, even though he had added both his address and the list sender address to his white list (contact list).

We investigated and found out there is in fact a bug preventing these messages from being white-listed and going straight to your Inbox, and they are always being caught in Suspect Email. The specific circumstances are

1. You have spamBlocker set to High (Suspect Email blocking).
   
2. You subscribe to a list service that doesn't come from within EarthLink.
   
3. You send messages to the list yourself.
   
4. You have correctly added both your own address and the list sender address to your contacts.

Self-sending is a special case that requires special handling, to prevent any spammer from simply putting your own address on the From line and bypassing spamBlocker, So it has special rules. The problem with sending to list servers is related to these special checks for self-sending. We hope to get this fixed soon. The correct behavior would be that when both the list sender address and your address are in your contact list, the message will bypass spamBlocker and go to your Inbox.

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For a few weeks now some users have been reporting very slow response when clicking on "This Is Spam", or on "This Is Not Spam", and also sometimes when just sending an email. I'm happy to report that this was fixed this morning. One of the servers that sends out messages from Web Mail was not working right and was responding very slowly, taking up to a minute to respond sometimes. Those features should be very speedy now. If anyone sees this issue again please do report it.

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Here is a list of some current user-facing issues that are high on our list to fix in upcoming releases:

• (FIXED) In preview mode, some users can't select messages. See details and workarounds here.

• A few users can't type anything into an html (rich text) message. See details and workaround here.

• (FIXED) Trash folder contents are being deleted sooner than the preference setting. See details here.

        Continue reading "High-priority open bugs as of 11/04/06" » »

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FIXED

In Web Mail preferences you can set the automatic deletion of the Trash Folder to 1, 7, 14, or 30 days, or Never. Currently there is a bug where Trash is auto-deleted at a maximum of 14 days, and settings higher than that are not being honored.

This bug also exists for the Suspect Email folder if you are using spamBlocker on High. That folder has the same settings.

UPDATE - This bug is now expected to be fixed in around the end of March, so that setting 30 days or Never will work correctly. In the meantime, please don't put email in the Trash that you want to keep permanently.

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UPDATE - FIXED! See release notes.

Since 5.11.2 was released we've had a few reports of users who are using the preview mode (Show Preview at upper right of page) and they report not being able to click and select messages to view. The first message in the list shows up fine, but others can't be selected.

You can turn off the preview mode until we get this fixed, and then messages will view fine. This can be toggled at the upper right of the page by clicking Hide Preview, and can also be set in preferences.

Check this other bug report for some other possible workarounds.

If anyone can provide more information to help us reproduce this, please post it here.

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