When a .jpg ISN'T a .jpg

[winwintoo]

The other day, I uploaded a web site containing old family pictures (.jpg). My Sis downloaded one of the pictures for some reason but then she couldn't read it on her computer - she gets a "mime" error.

I then saved the picture as .jpg (not saved for web) and .gif and emailed them to her - she can't see either one.

I have emailed her lots of pictures in the past and she's gotten them, so I found one of the old emails and resent it - she got it fine.

Does anyone have any theories about what might be happening??

Take care, Margaret

[clare]

I have no idea what is causing this, but a question... The images on the web site can she see them okay before they are down loaded in her browser? If she can then it strikes me this could be a good way to protect web images! If you find out what has caused this I would be very interested.

Sorry I can't help you figure out what has caused this

[clare]

One other thing are you saving the images using the save for web function on PS or the save as - don't forget that the save as function adds data to a jpg that other programs cannot read.

Just a thought

[themanda]

You might want to have her delete her cache and reboot her computer. She might only be able to view the older file because she already had a copy of it in her cache. It's worth a shot...

[G. Couch]

Margaret - Is your sister using AOL?

[winwintoo]

Greg; yes she is, AOL 8.0 - the latest one

Margaret

[T Paul]

Well I did a google search and this is what I came up with....

Are either one of you using AOL? I think I heard somewhere that AOL can't handle mime encoding and if you send more than one file in an email that AOL converts them to a mime file.

I am searching the web, but that's the closest to an answer I have found so far. Here are a few other tidbits I picked up on my search....

1. Have your tried sending the photos to someone else to see if they have the same problems?

2. Next it would be good to know if your friend uses a MIME-complaint email app. Look at the encoding your software is using, it may be defaulting to mime (base64) or binhex which will also cause a problem. You're generally safest if you specify uu-encolding for graphics. Try using UUENCODE instead of the "default" binhex/64 format of MAC

3. Are you sending your pics via AOL? If so, it compresses the pics and the receiver needs Stuffit-expander (for mac or pc) to uncompress it. Your friend may need (even if you aren't using AOL) a "mime decoder" program to see the pics. Have them visit download.com or shareware.com and find a mime decoding program.

4. Check the formt your e-mailer uses for attachments. If you use BinHex, the Windows machine probably can't read it. I use Eudora. I would recommend Apple Double or UUEncode format for sending photos

~T

[G. Couch]

I recall reading that AOL occasionally has problems decoding MIME... You have to manually decode the file. Do you remember the exact error she had?

You might want to try zipping the files using something like WinZip and see if she can extract and view them that way...it might help with the decoding issue.

[T Paul]

From an unofficial AOL FAQ site:

Discussion

Internet email is a text-based medium, whereas computer files are often in some kind of binary format. Thus, in order for them travel over the textual Internet, AOL's mail gateways must encode some attached file types, both when receiving and sending, using the "MIME" format. This will also happen when an Internet user sends multiple distinct attachments to AOL without compressing them into a single file.

A MIME-formatted email looks like a body full of garbled, unintelligible text. It's not that the attachments didn't arrive, as is the common complaint with regard to attachments; they just didn't arrive in a human-readable format.

A related complaint also involves embedded images (by choosing the Insert a Picture item on the email toolbar, as opposed to the Attach Files button). AOL uses a nonstandard format for embedded images into the bodies of messages generated by AOL 4.0-6.0, and will not work when sending to the Internet. This is corrected in AOL 7.0.

Solution

The sure-fire way to avoid MIME hassles is to limit attachments to one per message, and/or simply compress all attachments whether sending in or out of AOL. (When sending compressed attachments from the Internet to AOL, Base64 encoding should be used.) The AOL mail client can compress files (using Zip on the PC and StuffIt on the Mac), as can most Internet mail clients. AOL will generally not MIME-encode compressed file formats, provided they are properly encoded. Plus, you save uploading and downloading time by using compression.

If compression is not a viable choice, the MIME files will need to be saved as text files and decoded by AOL members and Internet users who are not using a fully MIME-compliant mail package. Popular MIME decoders are WinZip on Windows and StuffIt Expander on the Mac, although there are dozens of others. But to reiterate, this can be avoided by using compression.

Extensive information about MIME files and what is needed to decode them can be found at Keyword: MIME, About.com's Focus on AOL, and Iain Noble's CompuServe 2000 attachment decoding example. More information about MIME itself can be found at Yahoo!.

In the case of embedded images, AOL members sending to the Internet should either upgrade to AOL 7 or use attach instead. (The same can be said for the reverse, since AOL versions 5.0 and prior do not support HTML-embedded images.

[G. Couch]

Good info T! Looks like zipping the files will indeed help solve the problem...of course the real "sure-fire" way to avoid this is to avoid AOL!!

[T Paul]

From AOL's official site:

Can AOL Members accept e-mail attachments that are MIME encoded?
Yes. The AOL e-mail software is MIME compliant. As long as correspondents sending e-mail attachments to AOL also have e-mail software that is MIME compliant (and most e-mail software is), AOL Members and folks on the Internet can swap files.

Occasionally, AOL Members might need to decode a MIME file. If an e-mail file attachment is received and the file name ends in .mme, a MIME decoder will do the trick. If the Internet correspondent does not have MIME compliant e-mail software, a MIME decoder will definitely be needed. AOL Members can find more information on this topic on AOL at Keyword: Mime.

[winwintoo]

Thanks for all the info I will see if I can make my email use the uuencode - I'm using Mail in OSX.2. The problem seems to be intermittent. I have sent photos successfully using Mail, but today for some reason, it wouldn't work.

She sent me a picture today and I notice it was in .tif format - maybe I'll try that.

Would it make any difference whether I use Photoshop or some other graphics program to create the image file?? I've been switching between Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.

The world won't end if the problems persists, but I like to know how things work.

Take care, Margaret