Strange characters in received Thunderbird message

artmanphoto · 7 Dec 2018, 04:32 AM

I am using Thunderbird version 60.3.2 32 bit on a Windows 7 Professional machine. Sometimes but not all the time when I receive a message from someone there will be strange characters in the message. I wish there was a way to attach a screenshot but I don't think this board allows that.

I know this is probably an encoding issue. The Thunderbird encoding is set to Western. If I set it to Unicode the strange characters change to different strange characters. Most of the time I don't have this problem, just some of the time. It is interesting, a person sent me an several emails and some of them are OK but some of them have the strange characters.

Is this caused by my mail client (Thunderbird) of the mail client used by the person sending me the message?

Can anyone tell me how to fix this? Thanks very much.

janusz · 7 Dec 2018, 04:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by artmanphoto

I wish there was a way to attach a screenshot but I don't think this board allows that.

Correct.
The way round it is to store a screenshot on an image sharing/storing site, and post the link here.

janusz · 7 Dec 2018, 05:16 AM

Does the full header of a "funny" message contain something like
Content-Type: ..... charset="UTF-8"
with a different value for charset, of course?

I have no idea how to display full headers in Thunderbird....

Adrian Bell · 7 Dec 2018, 06:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by janusz

I have no idea how to display full headers in Thunderbird....

"View > Headers > Full".

However "View > Message Source" may be more useful as you will be able to see the whole message and see what is in place of the strange characters in the source.

artmanphoto · 7 Dec 2018, 12:58 PM

Here is a sentence that contains the strange characters.

I�ll have you what you�re looking for about violation letters
> tomorrow.

I checked the message encoding for this received message and it says Western. When I change the encoding to Unicode all of the strange character change to a small black diamond with a small white question mark inside the diamond.

I tried viewing the Message Source and I didn't really know what to look for. The strange characters were also in the Message Source.

FredOnline · 7 Dec 2018, 03:55 PM

This thread from the Mozilla Support Forum may assist:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1148525

Quote:

Sporadic sent emails, mainly forwarded emails, contain this symbol � wherever there is a space and the receiver cannot read the emails easily

FredOnline · 7 Dec 2018, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by artmanphoto

I wish there was a way to attach a screenshot but I don't think this board allows that.

This works:

http://emd.fastmail.com.user.fm/how-...in-a-emd-post/

I've just updated the page today to reflect changes to the Postimage website since my page was originally created.

Of course, the EMD web site hasn't changed at all!

7 Dec 2018, 04:32 AM	#1
artmanphoto Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Kansas City - USA Posts: 177	Strange characters in received Thunderbird message I am using Thunderbird version 60.3.2 32 bit on a Windows 7 Professional machine. Sometimes but not all the time when I receive a message from someone there will be strange characters in the message. I wish there was a way to attach a screenshot but I don't think this board allows that. I know this is probably an encoding issue. The Thunderbird encoding is set to Western. If I set it to Unicode the strange characters change to different strange characters. Most of the time I don't have this problem, just some of the time. It is interesting, a person sent me an several emails and some of them are OK but some of them have the strange characters. Is this caused by my mail client (Thunderbird) of the mail client used by the person sending me the message? Can anyone tell me how to fix this? Thanks very much. Last edited by artmanphoto : 7 Dec 2018 at 04:37 AM.

7 Dec 2018, 12:58 PM	#5
artmanphoto Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Kansas City - USA Posts: 177	Here is a sentence that contains the strange characters. I�ll have you what you�re looking for about violation letters > tomorrow. I checked the message encoding for this received message and it says Western. When I change the encoding to Unicode all of the strange character change to a small black diamond with a small white question mark inside the diamond. I tried viewing the Message Source and I didn't really know what to look for. The strange characters were also in the Message Source. Last edited by artmanphoto : 7 Dec 2018 at 01:07 PM.

7 Dec 2018, 05:16 AM	#3
janusz The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: EU Posts: 4,943	Does the full header of a "funny" message contain something like Content-Type: ..... charset="UTF-8" with a different value for charset, of course? I have no idea how to display full headers in Thunderbird....