.Mac mail: Missing body content (#2)

In what is turning out to be a much larger issue that initially expected, hundreds of users have reported receiving valid (non-spam) e-mail messages through Apple's .Mac system that are completely devoid of body content -- only the subject is displayed.

A few typical reports:

Ken writes: 'I received two ?empty? emails from well-known Mac seller Smalldog.com today. The nice guy there finally sent a specific email to me, because the generated-from-the-system emails were empty."

Judy Ray writes: "I have 2 separate .mac accounts, and the same message comes into both accounts. In one, the body of the message was missing, in the other it came in OK. Neither of these were from a list serve, although messages like that are also missing content.

John Lussow writes: "I, too have had off and on problems since last Thursday. They have been a nuisance but now they are a real problem. I can't answer questions from potential bidders on my eBay auctions. All eBay emails have the "--Boundary_(ID_HMCYHuRWSbv36eUZR0bXTQ)--" problem. [...] I am in the process of switching all these accounts to another email address. [...] I have sent 4 emails to .mac support since last Thursday and all seem to have been ignored (no response but the auto-generated ones). "

Fran Kosler writes: "I've been having the same problem for about a week. I'll either get an empty message or a 'Boundary ID' error."

For many users, the issue is not only sporadic but also inconsistent -- that is, if two similar messages are sent from the same sender at different times, one may properly display body content while the other does not.

Workarounds:

Routing messages through another mail server It appears that in most cases, messages otherwise affected by this problem come through intact if they are first sent to another account, then forwarded to the .Mac e-mail address.

One reader writes" "As a short term solution I had senders send my email to a forwarding email address (provided by my alma mater). The college email address is set to always forward everything to my mac.com email address. For some reason the same message comes through fine when it's forwarded from another place. I know all of the problematic senders are using PCs. I think they are using either Outlook or Entourage."

Viewing through Webmail interface As previously reported, some users have reported that they are able to see the entire messages by logging on through .Mac's Webmail interface, rather than by attempting to access .Mac e-mail through a client like Mail.app.

A reader writes:

"Likewise, I can read the message content via the WebMail interface, but any message forwarded to my other account via .Mac is 'munched.'"

Viewing 'raw source' Opting to view a message in "raw source," accessible via the "View" menu in Mail.app, works to display body content for some users.

Alan Dahl writes

"I've had a problem occasionally where I can't see the body of the message in Apple Mail but in each case selecting View->Message->Raw Source displays the message, or at least the non-HTML version of it."

If you are having a similar issue, please let us know.

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