Exchange Signature

[Kutschman]

Hello,

our Exchange server automatically adds a corporate signature under each mail. There is a special character in the address (Straße)
When there's any special character in the mail above (e.g. ä,ö,ü, ß, etc...), the address is correct. Otherwise the "ß" changes to "?"




Any idea what could cause that problem?

Regards
Jens

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Adds when?

To messages being sent? Where do you see this?

Please capture this in the app's debug log with "raw session data" enabled (the link is in my signature just below).

Open one such message, Menu -> Diag: reload

Wait for it to complete

Send the log to support / at / aqua-mail / dot com.

----

But I think that most likely the issue is *not* with AquaMail...

[StR]

It sounds like in the absence of any "special" letters, Aquamail chooses encoding to be ASCII (or whatever is it Win-1251?), while if there are "special" letters in the composed message, Aquamail chooses UTF-8.
Long-press on the account name -> Options and folders -> Composing and sending -> Outgoing message charset.
By default it is set to "Automatic"
(BTW, it looks like there is a small bug in the most recent google version, - the item says "Automatic", but when you tap on it, none of the "radio-buttons" (or whatever they are called) is indicated.)

So, when the server adds that footnote, its encoding of these letters is not correct in the encoding chosen by Aquamail.

If I were to guess, the server adds it in utf8.


@Kutschman
I would try setting the charset to utf8 or Win-1251, and seeing which one will work with the footnote.

[Kutschman]

@Kutschman
I would try setting the charset to utf8 or Win-1251, and seeing which one will work with the footnote.

That sounds reasonable and that's what I tried to do; but while the option "outgoing messagge charset" is shown
in my gmx account settings, it is missing in the exchange account.

Adds when?
To messages being sent? Where do you see this?

Yes, the get automatically attached AFTER the mail is sent. (Some hub-transport rule on the exchange server)

Please capture this in the app's debug log with "raw session data" enabled (the link is in my signature just below).

Open one such message, Menu -> Diag: reload

Wait for it to complete

Send the log to support / at / aqua-mail / dot com.

Just open a mail with the error? Or actually sending one?!
If I open such a mail there is no option called "Diag: reload" - only a "reload" button. Did you mean that?

But I think that most likely the issue is *not* with AquaMail...

Well, it works with the stock mail app on my Sony and Huawei, with the gmail app and with bluemail. So the explanation
of StR with the encoding sounds reasonable to me. The option to change that is just missing.



Last but not least: I checked the header of the mails. When I send a mail with a special character, the charset is iso-8859-1, without it's us-ascii, like StR wrote.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: I checked the header of the mails. When I send a mail with a special character, the charset is iso-8859-1, without it's us-ascii, like StR wrote.

There you have it then. Please talk to your "computer people".

For Exchange, Aqua does not choose the charset.

The data is sent to the server as UTF-8 -- but Exchange is "more cleverer" than SMTP, and so for you it apparently re-codes the message.

Re: no "Diag: reload" item

It shows only when debug logging is enabled.

I was hoping to see a debug log of you actually sending a message - but at this point, given what you posted above, I don't have any reason to think it's a bug in Aqua Mail.

Oh sounds like you already tried sending a message from Aqua with "special" characters (where you saw iso-8859-1) and it worked fine, no "corruption".

It just again makes it sound that the thing that adds a signature, server side, ignores the message's charset (and presumably always adds its snippet in UTF-8).

[StR]

I am glad my guess about encoding was helpful. Sorry, I am not using Exchange, so, I don't know all the details about how Aquamail works with exchange accounts.

Just in case, - I think this article might be useful for two purposes:
1. For trying to change that encoding using your MS Outlook (if it is allowed by the server policies).
2. For trying to talk to your IT people, if they don't know how to change the charset for the Exchange server.
https://www.codetwo.com/kb/global-encoding-of-outgoing-messages-at-exchange/ .

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Another option would be to fix the script that adds the "corporate policy" -- and have it check the encoding before appending UTF-8 new data to ISO-8851-1 existing data.

[StR]

I don't know if that would Bea script as opposed to a setting in the server (and a static text file).

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: I don't know if that would Bea script as opposed to a setting in the server (and a static text file).

Could be a static file too. In UTF-8 encoding apparently (based on what the artifact looks like).

[Kutschman]

I am glad my guess about encoding was helpful. Sorry, I am not using Exchange, so, I don't know all the details about how Aquamail works with exchange accounts.

Just in case, - I think this article might be useful for two purposes:
1. For trying to change that encoding using your MS Outlook (if it is allowed by the server policies).
2. For trying to talk to your IT people, if they don't know how to change the charset for the Exchange server.
https://www.codetwo.com/kb/global-encoding-of-outgoing-messages-at-exchange/ [nofollow] .

Thanks for the link, but it seems like this option is just a group policy to change the charset of every outlook-user in the domain. Thats not a setting in the exchange itself, so it
doesn't change anything with the mails sent by AM.

Another option would be to fix the script that adds the "corporate policy" -- and have it check the encoding before appending UTF-8 new data to ISO-8851-1 existing data.

I think I have to take a look on this one, if I don't find any setting in the Exchange directly. The script is a third party product though - dunno if i can change anything there.
 



Edit:

For Exchange, Aqua does not choose the charset.

It does not, but it should be able to if I understand that correctly. The charset doesn't seem to be forced by the exchange server -
I can choose the charset on different Mail clients (Outlook, Android stock Mail App, Gmail App, etc.) - or at least they don't
change it to us-ascii. So it should be possible to add the option just like the one in the "normal" imap accounts?!

[StR]

I am not an expert on Exchange protocol or server, but here is what Kostya has written earlier:

For Exchange, Aqua does not choose the charset.

The data is sent to the server as UTF-8 -- but Exchange is "more cleverer" than SMTP, and so for you it apparently re-codes the message.

From this, and from your test results, I can recreate what happens, step-by-step:

1. Aquamail sends everything in UTF-8, -- that is a charset that is sufficient to display any characters the message and the footnote might have.
(I don't know, but I would assume that the "charset" header is allowed in communication with the Exchange server and it is set correctly.)

What happens next is on the server side:
2. Exchange Server re-encodes the message to iso-8859-1 if it sees 8-bit characters, and to us-ascii, if all characters are 7-bit.

3. Then, either the Exchange server or (I am guessing somewhat more likely) the MTA (aka SMTP) server adds the footer with 8-bit characters in whatever encoding (I am guessing it is iso-8859-1, not UTF-8, as stated by Kostya, - because all characters look fine when the message in that encoding).

As a result, when the charset from step 2 is us-ascii, the symbols in the footer cannot be displayed (lost).

If this picture is correct, no matter what encoding Aquamail would choose, it will be changed at the step 2 the same way as now. {*}
It is really a disconnect between the steps 2 and 3 (and between your IT people who set those two steps).

Thus, you have two way to solve this problem:
1. Talk to your IT people, and explain what I've written above, and maybe they would be able to adjust one of the steps to make them working together.

2. Always add one of the non-ASCII characters to your messages.
One way you can do that in Aquamail "automatically" is by configuring a signature that would contain one of those characters.

---------------
{*} I don't know how the re-encoding of step 2 is configured.
There is a small chance that if the original encoding is iso-8859-1 already, the server would not touch it, and thus would not "downgrade" it to us-ascii for messages containing only 7-bit characters.
But IMHO, this is not worth additional testing: your IT people should configure your corporate servers correctly.

HTH.

[Kutschman]

2. Always add one of the non-ASCII characters to your messages.
One way you can do that in Aquamail "automatically" is by configuring a signature that would contain one of those characters.

That's what I'm doing at the moment.


Actually, I am one of the "IT guys", but I'm not really an Exchange expert - we had it installed/configured by an external company.
The only setting I can find in Exchange itself is this:


And this should be the standard setting.
I'm going to search for a solution from time to time. It works with every other mail client, so it's not really that urgent.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: The only setting I can find in Exchange itself is this:

That looks like a Windows window - so this has to be some Windows app, not *Exchange Itself* (maybe Outlook?)

I can only repeat that Aqua uploads drafts in UTF-8 (for Exchange accounts) which should be fine for all messages. There is no setting to change it as there is for SMTP, sorry.

And if something gets messed up by some script or add-on, sorry that's a problem with that script or add-on.

[Kutschman]

Well, let's just close this topic, I'm gonna look if I find some other settings/solutions. 

And of course it looks like a "Windows windows", Exchange is installed on a Windows Server... 

[wea213576]

It seems like your Exchange server's character encoding might be causing the issue with special characters in the corporate signature. You may want to check the encoding settings or consider using a third-party solution like Exclaimer to manage email signatures more efficiently.

Check the link below in my Signature!