Thunderbird won't display HTML

HCN · 17th July 2008

I have "display attachments inline" ticked and I have View/Message body as set to Original HTML yet I still cannot see the picture. All I see is a red dot. When I set the Message Body to Plain Text, I can see the HTML code which will then open in Firefox if click on, so the code is there and works; I just need to be able to see the picture in Thunderbird.

I have looked in about:config and there are several keys relating to HTML. I have tried tinkering but can find none that will allow the display of HTML.

Has anyone got any ideas, please?

**Ramona** · 18th July 2008

HCN,

Does your AV, or Firewall prevent images in Thunderbird? Try disabling one at a time and see what happens.

If it's an embedded image, click: View | Message Source
find the headers for the MIME body part (the image). This will typically be after the message body and just before a big block of characters all run together (the base64 encoded image).

Look for the Content-Type: header. It's used to tell Thunderbird what type of data it is so that it can pick the correct viewer. For example, a jpeg file would have Content-Type: image/jpeg;. If it has Content-Type: application/octet-stream; that means it's generic 8-bit data so Thunderbird would ignore it. You'd have to either change the Content-Type: header or get whoever sent you the message to resend it using the correct headers.

HCN · 18th July 2008

Hi Ramona,

Thank you for your post. Unfortunately, none of that worked.

To disable my AV/Firewall (AVG8), I went to msconfig (I cannot find any other way of disabling the AV side).

When that didn't work, I tried disabling other items. I was becoming convinced that there was a mismatch somewhere. I got to the point where I disabled everything except the obvious networking items. That didn't work but neither did the internet (I presume that html items require the connection to work). So I tried safe mode with networking. The html items still refused to show themselves.

The MIME section of one such message (this one is from a trusted source and the html worked until 2 or 3 months ago) is:

Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>

HCN · 18th July 2008

I am now getting puzzled.

I have just received an e-mail, containing photos, from a friend. Now this friend always sends in html (to make the most disgusting red type on a cyan background). I have checked the MIME section and it has:

Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>

which, to me looks very similar to the one in my post above. Yet Thunderbird shows this html perfectly (given the colours used, I am almost disappointed ;-) ).

Do the slight differences between these two mails hold a clue to the problem?

**Ramona** · 19th July 2008

HCN,

AVG 8 isn't your firewall, that is your antivirus program. To disable, right click on the AVG icon in the system tray, and click on "Exit".

The Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" looks fine. What browser is the sender using?

HCN · 19th July 2008

Yes, AVG is my firewall as well. I have the paid for version. Very good it is too. Thanks for the information on stopping the AV part (the firewall part is more obvious). I had thought that exiting the icon only did just that and not the whole AV.

I don't know what browser they are using but the headers show:

User-Agent: Frontwire Platform

**Ramona** · 20th July 2008

HCN,

Would you forward the email to me? I would really like to take a look at it, and will give you an email addy via PM.

Thanks!

**Ramona** · 20th July 2008

Another thought: save the message as an HTML file, with a .HTML file extension. Then double click on it in Windows Explorer and see if it displays the image.

From: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Images_in_..._do_not_appear

HCN · 20th July 2008

Hi Ramona, I have now saved it as an html file and it opened in my browser perfectly.

**Westside** · 22nd July 2008

In case you need to disable the AVG Firewall, you should play with the Web Shield, I believe . My AV has seven items, while AVG with Firewall has nine.
Disabling should be done temporarily to check on suspected problems, only.

HCN · 22nd July 2008

Thanks for the suggestion. It is difficult to know what exactly disables AVG as there appears to be no documentation from Grisoft about this. At least, not that I can find. I will try the shield next time I need to do this but the easiest way to be certain is to start in safe made.

**Ramona** · 23rd July 2008

To disable AVG:

Right click the AVG Icon in the system tray
Open the AVG User Interface
Click on "Components", and select "Resident Shield"
Deselect the "Resident Shield Active" checkmark and click on "Save Changes"

Reverse the setting to reactivate the Resident Shield.

HCN · 23rd July 2008

Thanks, Ramona.

By the way, did you receive the e-mail OK?

**Ramona** · 23rd July 2008

Yes I did, and had no problem viewing the HTML. All links worked for me in Thunderbird, but I was also expecting something with an image...

I also wanted to clarify if the links were plain text, or if you clicked on a link what happened?

HCN · 23rd July 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ramona

Yes I did, and had no problem viewing the HTML. All links worked for me in Thunderbird, but I was also expecting something with an image...

That means it must be something on my computer.

I'm not sure exactly what you were expecting, there are several images in that mail, all represented (on my computer) by a red dot.

Never mind, thank you for trying. The only thing for me to do now (when I get a little time) is to experiment with removing blocks of software. I have already tried the obvious and excluded Thunderbird and AVG, so it may take some time.