This is very, very weird.

Web messaging has TWO DIFFERENT ways to send out E-mail!  One works, the other is 
totally flawed.  Not only that, but the headers for the messages are created in two 
different ways, as well!

The first way (the one that works) is to just drop files into the spool directory.  
The second way is to send via SMTP to whatever answers the SMTP port on localhost, and 
it completely flawed.

This explains why people sending mail via web messaging sometimes have the Year 100 
show up in the date, and why the return address is sometimes "" rather than the user's 
name or E-mail address.

I do not know why IMail web messaging sometimes connects via SMTP, or why it is so 
flawed.

Yesterday, I sent two messages 3 hours apart, the first was flawed (sent via SMTP) and 
the second was fine (dropped into the spool directory).  So I decided to take a closer 
look.

Here are some sample headers of the "Good" way (dropped into spool directory):

From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 13:21:13 -0400
Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Message-Id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
X-Sender: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
X-Mailer: <IMail v6.03>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

... and from the bad way (SMTP):

From: "" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 100 10:53:30 EDT
Reply-To: "" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-Id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[No X-Sender, X-Mailer, Mime-Version or Content-Type headers]

Note specifically that when sending via SMTP, it [1] Says that the user's name is "" 
(wrong), [2] Uses the year 100 (Y2K issue), [3] EDT is used instead of -0400 to show 
the time zone (I think that's O.K.), [4] Reply-to also shows user's name as "" 
(wrong), [5] "To:" field has no "<>" around the address (I think that's O.K.), [6] 
Message-ID is constructed differently, and uses a different domain name(!), [7] 
Doesn't have X-Sender, X-Mailer, or MIME headers (OK).

The strangest part of all is there seems to be no reason for it to use the flawed way 
instead of the good way -- but sometimes it does.

[IMail, this is the information you need to fix the "Year 100" problem for good.]
                            -Scott

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