Hi I am facing this problem which I think its simple but I am unable to find a solution for it ! I am using windows 2003 server and Exchange 2003 server. Some users are having problem receiving attachments. whether the attachment is a (.text) file, a (.doc) file, or any other type. The users can successfully receive the message it self (The content of the message's body), but for some reason the attached file disappears !! Those users who are having this problem are all in the same site and they are using the same Exchange server. Actually, they are in the same department and their mailboxes are in the same Exchange database. All other users in other departments are OKwhen sending and receiving attachments. Except this specific department which for unknown reason are unable to send and receive attachments. One more thing: When Sending an attached file from an outside email e.g. (hotmail, gmail, yahoo...etc.) to any user in this specific department the attached file appears Successfully, butif the user in this department sends an email with an attachment to other poeplewho are using (hotmail, gmail,..etc), the attached file disappears !!! Please Help ! Thanks Kumail

Hello Kumail, Will you please goto ESM > Internet Message Formats. Check the message formats tab in properties page of "Default" Make sure MIME and Both formats are selected. Also download OWAAdmin from microsoft website (google it) and after installation run the interface using https://domain.com/owaadmin , login with administrator credentials and check under Attachment Handling "Allow All Attachments" and "Accessible Everywhere" is enabled. Let us know whats the further status. Thanks, Wasim

I would look at your anti-virus anti-spam settings. Someone might have set up a scanning rule to strip attachments or something like that.

I have the same issue, as discribed by Kumail. In my case it's even simpler: only one database. Sometimes (not all the time, BUT sometimes) attachments are getting removed from messages. No anitivirus, no anti-spam installed on the server. Any ideas? Thanks!!!

Can you walk us through the steps you take to reproduce the scenario? For example. UserA sends UserB a message using Outlook connected to Exchange. UserA includes a word document in the message. UserA can see the email in their sent items with the attachment. UserB gets the message using Outlook connected to Exchange. UserB sees the message as it was sent but there is no message. This would be a different scenario than say UserA using Google to send UserB (on Exchange) a message as your anti-SPAM/anti-Virus gateway/provider/whatever could be doing something to the messages. Other possibilities are that attachments are there, but Outlook is blocking access to them. MSFT included attachment blocking in one of Outlook 2000's SPs, and it has been in Oulook ever since. So perhaps that is what your are seeing.

Ok, i'll try to explain the setup... It's one Domain, one Exchange server 2007 SP1, one database. Clients - Outlook2007. There is another MTA (Postfix) between Internet and Exchange server. The problem happes only sometimes and i can not catch that moment and correlate it to any other events happening on Postfix or on Exchange. So, what i have now is the following: External user sends us e-mail with attachment (PDF, DOC). It's notgmail.com, hotmail.com or any other public email provider. It'sprivate company's e-mail system.We recieve this message with no corruption at all, but attachment is removed. There is no indication in Outlook 2007, saying that attachment was removed or blocked. When i check logs on the Postfix - i found only info, that the message has been passed to my internal Exchange server. On my Exchange server - i don't see any problems (errors, warnings) about recieving messages. Exchange server: There is no antivirus on Exchange server; anitivirus is installed on clients, but for now e-mail checking is disabled. Also, there is no antispam solution as such. What i have i just enabled filters for non-existing users in Active Directory - all other features of Anti spam solutions from Microsoft are disabled. Postfix: No antispam, no atnivirus. The only check that is being performed on the gateway is check of IP address of the sender against opened public databases of spammers, etc.. Outlook: Outlook 2007. Cached mode is turned off. Antivirus e-mail scan is off. No antispam installed. What really annoys me is that this problem happens from time to time. So even if first message didn't come through, we can reply to the sender, ask for the new copy, and that new copy will be delievered to us as there was no problem at all! I don't see any problems with hardware or file system. Database of Exchange is not reporting any problems either. There is plenty of space for database, logs and for queues. Unfortunately, i can not provide more accurate information, as i'm just starting to investigate the issue. Thank you in advance for all suggestions! Cheers! -D

So I take it that this problem does not exist between users on the Exchange system, just when outside users send email into Exchange, and then only sometimes? The easiest thing to do would be to remove the Postfix server from the equation. It doesn't sound like it's doing anything for you, and frankly could be the source of your problems. So unless there is a reason for the Postfix server (please don't say security as it is no more secure on port 25 than Exchange), I would remove the uncessary hop from your equation by having inbound messages be delivered directly to the Exchange server on port 25. Otherwise you would need to look at the SMTP headers of the emails when they got into Exchange. If they don't reference an attachment, then the attachment was most likely stripped before it was given to Exchange.

Yes, that's absolutely right - only external e-mailsare affected. And yes, i was thinking of removing Postfix from equation (at least for now). Postfix is installed to take first load off the Exchange server. it does it job and it's free. Thanks for your advises!

Dimiara, I just had this same problem with one of the users on my Exchange 2007. Did you find a solution? I had the external sender re-send the e-mail to my personal Exchange 2003 server outside the company and I can receive the attachment, but if I forward that person's e-mail to my internal company (Exchange 2007) account, it strips the attachment, every time I forward it. Additionally, if I save the attachment sent to my personal e-mail to a local hard drive then re-attach it to a new e-mail and send it to my company account, the attachment arrives fine. Have you found out why this happens? Thanks! Vito Asaro

Vito, Unfortunately, it's not clear yet. I have removed Postfix, recieving all e-mails directly from Internet. The only thing i can say, is that I didn't have attachment problems so far. If i have any news - i'll post them here. I never asked our users to save and then re-attach the document before forwarding e-mail, so i don't know if this is the case in our system. However, it's intersting observation I'll check that later. The only difference from your situation is that In my case i had problem with recieving attachmentsANDsending them out.Sometimes, message leaving our sytem was stripped down: either attachment was removed or even the most part of the actual text.First i thought, it hassomething to do with HTML/Rich Text format, so asked people to send messages in Plain Text, but that didn't really help.Attachments were stillgetting removed and some of the messagesjust cut by 2/3. What really annoys me is that it happens only sometime! i couldn't find pattern.. So, my case is still under investigation!

Dimiara; Have you tried turning on "Use Cashed Exchange Mode" in the Outlook client and testing it? I found that works but I still don't know why it works. I have been looking for a solution for my TS Users which you cant use Cashed mode for. -Tech-X

Hi everyone.. I have vista Home premium laptop. I am facing the following issues recently, where I can not download any word attachments. Tried to run service pack, but Exe file will nerver, after download. Example, idownloaded OWAAdmin.exe, filewas downloaded, but never ran.I couldn't findthe file, even if i selected a folder to save... Disappears.. Files in attachment looks like downloading from email, but never saved in selected location and never opens for preview. I found a few windows updates, while install, Failure to install Security update for Microsoft office web components (kb947319) .. Any help would be highly appreciated.. Thanks Joe.

Hi All, I know this thread is rather old but was the only one I could find where people were experiencing the same problem as me. We've had Postfix in use as a mail server between domain hosting boxes, and our own Exchange server. We started experiencing a couple of users would send mail to people outside our organisation and their attachments would just disappear. They would send it to me and I would get the attachment fine. If I tried to forward it .... attachment lost again. If I saved the attachment and then sent it from my own account it was all OK. This started to point me at the individual users account. After much deliberation and searching around the net for different articles I did the following. I bumped up the smtpd process in Postfix to smtpd -v and reloaded Postfix ... sent the usual forwarded email which lost the attachment to my Gmail account and watched the Postfix log file. This got me intrigued. 354 End data with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF> Followed by > bega04[192.168.3.8]: 250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 44896FEC4E Mar 15 12:31:34 ns1 postfix/smtpd[16087]: < bega04[192.168.3.8]: Mar 15 12:31:34 ns1 postfix/smtpd[16087]: > bega04[192.168.3.8]: 500 5.5.2 Error: bad syntax Mar 15 12:31:34 ns1 postfix/smtpd[16087]: < bega04[192.168.3.8]: Confidentiality Notice: This email, and any accompanying attachmen t, Mar 15 12:31:34 ns1 postfix/smtpd[16087]: match_string: Confidentiality ~? CONNECT Mar 15 12:31:34 ns1 postfix/smtpd[16087]: match_string: Confidentiality ~? GET Mar 15 12:31:34 ns1 postfix/smtpd[16087]: match_string: Confidentiality ~? POST Mar 15 12:31:34 ns1 postfix/smtpd[16087]: match_list_match: Confidentiality: no match Mar 15 12:31:34 ns1 postfix/smtpd[16087]: > bega04[192.168.3.8]: 502 5.5.2 Error: command not recognized Mar 15 12:31:34 ns1 postfix/smtpd[16087]: < bega04[192.168.3.8]: contains confidential information in This is part of our Corporate signature text which was being sent by Exchange to Postfix as commands after which Postfix thinks the email has reached the END !!!!!! Turned out when I looked in the original email sent to me from the user in question it had this in the signature !!!!! Liability is limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation . Confidentiality N Postfix was interpreting the CR LF . CR LF as the end of the email. Guess what I deleted the dot our of the email and all works fine. so much for days worth of hunting around thinking that something was broken.

Yup, third party software including disclaimers have been one of the common culprits when inline attachments are missing. Inline attachments are not displayed in Outlook 2007 e-mail messages http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961940James Chong MCITP | EA | EMA; MCSE | M+, S+ Security+, Project+, ITIL msexchangetips.blogspot.com