[imp] Vista/IE/IMP attachment weirdness

[Michael M Slusarz]

Quoting Kevin Konowalec <webadmin at ualberta.ca>:

> Okay we've got a strange one here.  I'll try to explain it as best I can...
>
> We're running:
> 	- Horde 3.2.1
> 	- IMP 4.2
> 	- PHP 5.2.3
>
> The complaints coming in have been that people are having problems  
> downloading attachments.  They claim they click on the download icon  
> and a box pops up saying it's looking for the file information and  
> then it just sits and spins, never downloading the attachment.
>
> So on investigation we found that we WERE able to re-create the  
> problem...but ONLY on Windows Vista running IE 7.  This seemed to  
> only be a problem with certain file formats.  For example, .doc and  
> .docx, .xls, .rtf, etc would fail but others, such as .pdf, would  
> open immediately.  When I finally found the browser settings (which  
> took forever... they moved everything for IE7 so I don't know where  
> anything is anymore) it said that .doc/.docx, for example, were  
> associated with Word... so it doesn't look like a file association  
> problem.  The same thing happens when you simply try to download and  
> save the file without opening it.  To me it's almost as if IE7/Vista  
> isn't talking to IMP properly so the download is never initiated.   
> It's also not the file itself, since the same file can be downloaded  
> in IE7/Vista from Hotmail.

Older versions of IE were broken when it came to downloading files -  
we had to alter the download links in various ways to "trick" IE into  
downloading instead of viewing.

> I'm also being told that when you attempt to open certain file types  
> (mentioned above) if you click on the filename (if it's clickable)  
> the file opens, but if you click on the download icon you see the  
> behavior I described above).

This is a bit disturbing.  Clicking on the filename *should*, if a  
viewer is configured, open up a HTML-rendered viewer, not display the  
file.  For files without a MIME Viewer, this link should be identical  
to the download link.

> Files like .docx that imp doesn't know about (I'm guessing) don't  
> have clickable filenames to associate with a program so there's no  
> alternative for them.
>
> There are two workarounds we've found so far.  First... use Firefox.  
>  Using Firefox on Vista works 100% of the time.  No problem at all.   
> The other workaround seems to be to simply forward the message with  
> the attachment and when inside the compose screen click on the  
> attachment to preview it.  That also works all the time in IE7/Vista.
>
> Something's screwy... anyone have any clue what it might be?  I know  
> this is kind of a vague description but it's a tough nut to crack  
> since it seems to only affect a few people in a few certain  
> instances.  We had to borrow a student's computer to be able to  
> recreate the problem (nobody is running vista here... and this is  
> just another reason why)

As mentioned above, my guess is that this has nothing to do with Vista  
per se but that Microsoft fixed IE 7 so our attempts at "tricking"  
these newer versions of IE are not needed anymore.  Unfortunately, I  
don't use MS Office so I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to  
reproduce this if this is a MS Office only issue.

michael

-- 
___________________________________
Michael Slusarz [slusarz at horde.org]