Remote content (pictures) in emails [OT in uk.d-i-y]

[Roger Mills]

I receive regular emails from various UK companies, containing details of their latest offers - Aldi, Lidl, Screwfix, Maplin, etc. These invariably contain pictures as remote content. My email client of choice is Outlook 2007 - yes I know! The OS is W7 Pro 32-bit.

Of late, many of the pictures have been replaced with empty boxes with little red crosses in the top left corner. As far as I know, I haven't changed any settings, and I've been tearing my hair out (what's left of it!) to try to get the pictures displayed. Some display ok some of the time - others don't - there doesn't seem to be any consistency.

Some of the emails have a link at the top inviting me to display it in my browser. If I click on that, it displays in my default browser - Firefox - and is ok, but I'd rather not have to do that. Alternatively, if I click on "View in browser" (under Other Actions) in the Outlook ribbon, it opens bl**dy IE - which is *not* my default browser - and

*still* doesn't display properly. So it seems to be a M$ problem. But I've looked at all the settings in Outlook *and* internet options in IE

- and can't see anything which looks as if it needs changing.

Any clues while I've still got *some* hair left?

[Mike Barnes]

Is there anything special about the URLs? A sample or two might be illuminating.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Thunderbird, by default, will not display remote content because it leaks data back to the sender about you having opened the email, which is information you might not want them to have. However, it provides a "Load Images" button to do so.

Is there a similar security setting in Outlook?

Other possibilities might be bad proxy settings, so it can't access the web.

[Roger Mills]

Yes, I use TB for Usenet but not for email, except for one Gmail account. If I forward one of the offending emails to my Gmail account and open it in TB, it doesn't show the pictures until I've clicked on "Show remote content" or somesuch - then it's ok.

Yes, in Tools / Trust Center / Automatic Download there's a tickbox saying "Don't download pictures automatically in HTML email messages or RSS items" Under that are several more sub-options to selectively allow downloading under specified circumstances. These are greyed out unless the main box is ticked. On my machine, the main box and all the sub-options are all unticked.

I'm not aware that I'm using *any* proxy settings. How would I check?

[Roger Mills]

Here's one URL - presumably for the picture. If I click on it, I get a different URL - taking me to the item on the website. I can't capture the picture URL electronically 'cos it won't stay on the screen, but I've written down the first part of it:

{followed by a very long string of Hex characters}

[Andrew Gabriel]

That looks more like a click action if you click on the image. If you move over the image and right click, you might get options to copy image location, or to open just the image.

[Mike Barnes]

Hmmm, nothing suspicious there, though it look like a tracking URL (boo!). You say "many" of the pictures: do any of those that do display have similar URLs?

The other thing that occurs to me is that your cache might be borked and clearing it out might solve the problem. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if OE and IE shared a cache that was distinct from Firefox's.

[Toby]

Outlook will be using IE's settings, so fire up IE, and check the proxy settings in there.

I suggest you also reset this to defaults under the "Advanced" tab, as this should disable any toolbars and add-ons that might be interfering.

[Roger Mills]

Here's one from Lidl which is vaguely similar, and which *does* display:

{long alpha-numeric string}

Having said that, Lidl is one of the companies whose pictures often

*don't* display - it seems to vary from email to email!

I can't find any specific reference to cache in either IE or Outlook. I've just deleted a lot of browsing history-type stuff and temporary internet files in IE, but it doesn't seem to have made any difference.

[Steve Hayes]

My e-mail reader, Pegasus, deprectes that, and calls it "lazy HTML" and warns of the dangers -- it is often used for malwayre. So I leave it set to display such things as grey boxes, and delete the messages.

I prefer not to see HTML in e-mail, and if they want to show me a web site, then they can put in the URL, with a description of what is there, and then I can choose whether or not I want to look at it, and click on it if I do.

[Roger Mills]

I get an option to "Copy" - which doesn't specify *what* is to be copied. If I click on that and then try to paste it into Notepad there's nothing there - so it certainly didn't copy the text in the URL.

[Roger Mills]

Many thanks - that seems to have fixed it - for the time being at any rate!

I went into IE and told it to set all the settings to Default which - as you say - disables toolbars, etc. among other things. It then required a re-boot to take effect - after which pictures in emails which didn't previously display now seem to do so.

I never use IE - and certainly haven't consciously changed any settings in it. I can only assume that they've got changed by some of the "security" updates and/or by toolbars which have been installed when I've been installing various new bits of software - although I'm always careful to avoid letting it do this whenever possible.

[Robin]

A couple of straws if you feel like grabbing:

1. If you forward the email(s) to a webmail address are the images rendered OK?
2. If you care to forward one or more to me (at the reply-to address in this message) I'll try opening them in Outlook 2007[1] here.

[1] What's shameful about using Outlook? I know it's from MS but we found it comveneient to use at home what we used at work and have continued since it seems fine for email, diaries etc etc.

[Jethro_uk]

Fancy that ... I can't recall the last time I *needed* to reboot Linux after any installation or upgrade.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Every time the kernel or grub changes...if you want the changes to take effect, anyway ;-)

[...winston‫]

Fyi...if the content of the message or web site redirection is found or has been classified as possible suspicious settings the filters in Office Outlook will override user configuration and create the 'red cross' symptom.

If you are certain the email's with the 'red cross' issue are from valid sources ensure that the sender is in your address book and enable the option to trust email from your contacts. Note: Doing so may not impact prior received emails.

[Char Jackson]

One of the things Outlook does *well* is multiple email accounts.

[The Natural Philosopher]

As does thunderbird..

[Windmill]

Over the last several months I've noticed some unusual things which didn't much matter to me. Completely empty emails, or empty emails from respectable old relatives, with an attached note saying that a virus had been detected and the content deleted. (Chances are that it would have done me no harm, since I'm running Linux.) Complaints from someone who suddenly found that he couldn't access various sites on his laptop where AFAIK he still runs Windows. Instead he got a message which said "No data received: ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE" And a day or two later, while downloading some software, I got the same identical message from 'wget'. It retried, and the retry succeeded. To me this suggests that there's a lot of packet inspection taking place, with clueless automata deleting items containing 'suspect' binary data.

Could that have some connection with your problems? I remember the difficulties people had some years back with text which referred to 'blue t*ts' or people with the surname Cockburn.

[Robin]

I was glad to see you were sorted. And ashamed as I think I did once know that Outlook used IE for (?) rendering HTML etc.

Thanks.