Recently, several customers have noticed that messages sent to
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> don't always get redistributed to the mailing
list. Most often, these messages are in a format incompatible with
the mail software on transarc.com. This message describes the problem
and provides some suggestions for getting around the limitations.
The mail software used on transarc.com does not currently support
MIME-formatted messages. This means that the messages sent to
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> having certain MIME headers will *not* be
redistributed to the list. Until we are able to upgrade our mail
software, please avoid sending mail in MIME format to any of the
Info-AFS lists. A follow up message will be sent once the problem is
resolved.
Note: Mail sent to the AFS Product Support address is handled by a
different system, so no MIME messages sent to Product Support have
been lost. Only our redistribution lists exhibit this restriction.
Until a newer version of the mail software is installed, we will
attempt to catch any of the problematic messages and resend them to
the appropriate list. If you don't receive a copy of your Info-AFS
message after a few days, find out if you have a MIME-compliant mailer
and see if you can disable the MIME headers while sending to Info-AFS.
If you still have problems, send a copy of your original message along
with a request for help to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.
The specific MIME header that causes problems is "Content-Type:". The
version of AMDS that we currently use on transarc.com also uses a
header of that name to indicate the format of the message.
Unfortunately, the values used by MIME are not compatible with AMDS.
MIME mail containing only text typically has a header starting with:
Content-Type: text/plain
When the mail system attempts to redistribute the message, it checks
this header and fails with an "unknown content type" error message.
The errors are sent to an internal Transarc bulletin board, so no
automatic notification is provided to the sender. After we upgrade to
the most recent version of AMDS, transarc.com will recognize the MIME
content types and will be able to redistribute the messages in the
normal fashion.
Joe Jackson,
AFS Product Support,
Transarc Corp.
