Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 245427
Thunderbird cannot save "application/mac-binhex40" attachments
Last modified: 2008-01-15 09:38:38 EST
Description of problem: Attachments of MIME type "application/mac-binhex40" (received from a Mac also running Thunderbird) cannot be read or saved to disk. The attachment contains BinHex-4.0 encoded PDF files with .pdf extensions in the filenames. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): N/A, latest How reproducible: Always. Steps to Reproduce: 1. Receive an email with "application/mac-binhex40" attachment 2 [details]. Try to save or read it 3. Failure Actual results: No file saved. Expected results: File named "file.pdf" saved to disk Additional info: MIME type "application/mac-binhex40" is an IANA standard, see http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/application/ and http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/application/mac-binhex40 BinHex-4.0 encoding is a standard binary format for exchanging Macintosh files (including the resource fork) that has been around for about 20+ years (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BinHex). It's puzzling that this format cannot be decoded by Linux Thunderbird when received from a Macintosh Thunderbird (even same version), when other recipients of the same message could decode the attachment (e.g. on a Mac).
Seems that this isn't just restricted to Linux. The Windows version (and possibly the mac version too? at least some of these apply to mac) can't do this either. There are several bugs upstream about this, possibly more. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=361253 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=333311 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=231759
Yes, it's a more general problem -- but since Thunderbird on Macs defaults to BinHex 4.0 encoding (unless mimeTypes.rdf says otherwise), recipients of such attachments on Linux, Windows, and Mac should be able to decode them properly. BTW, some people *can* decode the very same attachment that others cannot. Even some Linux users reported being able to decode it; so the breakdown I reported might be a recent development.
Fedora Core 6 is no longer supported, could you please reproduce this with the updated version of the currently supported distribution (Fedora 7, 8, or Rawhide)? If this issue turns out to still be reproducible, please let us know in this bug report. If after a month's time we have not heard back from you, we will have to close this bug as CANTFIX. Setting status to NEEDINFO, and awaiting information from the reporter. [This is mass-filed message to all open Fedora Core 6 bugs related to Xorg or Gecko. If you see any other reason, why this bug shouldn't be closed, please, comment on it here.]
Since there are insufficient details provided in this report for us to investigate the issue further, and we have not received feedback to the information we have requested above, we will assume the problem was not reproducible, or has been fixed in one of the updates we have released for the reporter's distribution. Users who have experienced this problem are encouraged to upgrade to the latest update of their distribution, and if this issue turns out to still be reproducible in the latest update, please reopen this bug with additional information. Closing as INSUFFICIENT_DATA. {This is mass-closing of all obsolete bugs; if this bug was in your opinion closed by mistake, please, reopen it with additional information; thanks a lot and I am sorry for bothering you in such case.}