I'm going to take the liberty of inserting and attaching an image of a 1917 newspaper page listing various railroad passenger train services at San Antonio Texas. They were originally sent to a message board I own as three images pasted to a word doc and though they were viewable in the email, they were not viewable when the message was posted. I then converted the images to a jpeg -- by making two screen caps and pasting them together -- but they still don't come through. Well, the attachment came through but too small to be readable.

Here's the image-



Which I am also attaching. Anyone know why they didn't come through?

tommy0421

This is the message I get from the message board.

This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.

<Error>
<Code>InvalidArgument</Code>
<Message>
Header value cannot be represented using ISO-8859-1.
</Message>
<ArgumentName>response-content-disposition</ArgumentName>
<ArgumentValue>
inline; filename="SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS ¨C SUNDAY, 18 March 1917.jpg"
</ArgumentValue>
<RequestId>6A7F794657A6633E</RequestId>
<HostId>
6K6Kgg8C04DRT9G6DBNF+tfmvR7vMhKWn+J4xM/9Rm/Bu2pgjR7wRMSMjDtRcYVpOd3fyPK2Xas=
</HostId>
</Error>

tommy0421

Are you pasting it, originally or 2nd try, into the body or attaching the image?
Using what email application?
Try messaging it via the gio web interface? Insert (using the insert pic tool) or attaching the file.?

I posted the message and images from the website. No email involved.? I used the Add picture tool and the Add attachment tool. A member had originally sent the image to the group as images pasted onto a word doc and attached to his email. They opened properly in the pending message preview but not when they were actually posted. I offered to help. I copied the images and saved them as a single png, went to the website, replied to his message and added the images as pictures and attachments. Again, they displayed just fine in preview. It's a group where everyone is moderated including me. When I opened the pending message the image and attachment displayed properly. I approved the message and once it posted it no longer displayed. I got the tiny icon and the same XML error message. I tried it again, saving the image as a jpeg. Previewed fine. Sent to the group and displayed properly in pending. Once approved the image no longer displayed and again I got the error message. The attachment also opens and displays properly in review or as a pending message. Once posted it no longer will open. Instead, I get the XML error message.

In this morning's daily digest the images displayed normally but not the attachments. They return the XML error message: "This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it." Why does the software call it an XML file? It's a jpeg. What does not having any "style information" mean?

What really has me baffled is, why the image displays properly in preview and pending but not when it is actually posted. What is happening in between? The group is one that began on Yahoo almost twenty years ago, we have had thousands of images posted. I myself must have posted hundreds. Not once has this ever happened before. Size doesn't seem to be the problem. The image is about 300 kb.

This is a history group and images are very important. I would really like to have some idea what might have gone wrong in order to be able to correct it if this happens again in the future.

tommy0421

¿ªÔÆÌåÓý

Tommy,

I'm going to take the liberty of inserting and attaching an image of a
1917 newspaper page listing various railroad passenger train services
at San Antonio Texas. ... and though they were viewable in the email,

Both came through cleanly (legibly) in my email as well.

Thunderbird showed the attached copy inline after the message body (per one of my option settings), and the Gmail web interface showed the attachment as a thumbnail (click to view and download).

The inline image was formatted in the message body as a normal-looking HTML <img> tag:

<img src=cid:[email protected]" />

"cid" is the traditional attachment protocol for inline images, so nothing funky there.

... they were not viewable when the message was posted.

This looks like a bug to me.

The inline image ought to show inline, and the attachment thumbnail ought to be clickable to view/download. For the attachment I get the same XML error code you copied.

I don't know exactly what the problem is. It doesn't seem to be a problem with how the web message poster is formatting the message, given that at least two different email interfaces display it correctly. So I'm guessing it is a problem in the Messages display when one views the message.

I then converted the images to a jpeg -- by making two screen caps and
pasting them together -- but they still don't come through.

Given that inline and attached images normally work for me and others, my first thought was that the image file format is something that Groups.io image viewing couldn't handle. But that second test should have cured that, I would think.

You're welcome to experiment with different image formats in shalstest (I recently approved your membership) to see if you can identify what does and does not work - I'm sure that info will help Mark enormously in tracking down the problem. But ultimately this seems to me like it needs to be reported in beta as a #bug.

Shal


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A thank you to Dano and Shal for responding. It did strike me as a system bug. Last night I offered to 'help' the member by copying his image (from the pending submission) and converting it to a jpeg and reposting. When it didn't work it was a surprise -also a tad embarrassing. I can almost hear some of the members muttering, "I always knew this guy didn't know what he was talking about." LOL

Shal I am going to copy the images from the member's original source -- online historic newspapers -- which are actually in PDF format. Then convert them to jpegs (as I have done I don't know how many times). Then post to shalstest. I'm wondering if I start from scratch if that might work?

When I report this in Beta should I send the image or just the error code?

tommy0421

tommy0421,

Shal I am going to copy the images from the member's original source
... Then post to shalstest. I'm wondering if I start from scratch if
that might work?

Amusingly, it did. More below.

When I report this in Beta should I send the image or just the error
code?

In beta you should post a link to example messages in your group(s), and/or the one in GMF. That will let Mark see the effect for himself and examine the message and its headers for clues.

-----

This is kind of an odd theory, and I've not tested it, but the only difference I'm seeing between what does not display right in GMF, and what does in shalstest, is the file name.

In particular, the one in GMF included an en-dash character.

From the view source of your message at GMF, the image file header says:

Content-Type: image/jpeg; name="SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS ¨C SUNDAY, 18 March

1917.jpg"

Content-Disposition: inline; filename="SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS ¨C SUNDAY,

18 March 1917.jpg"

That character after "TEXAS" is not an ordinary hyphen. It is an en-dash character and in the filename text was represented in UTF-8 as the sequence ?€¡° (0xE2 80 93) - the Unicode code point 0x2013, which displays as an en-dash.

I'm not sure what the email standard says about using UTF-8 encoding in header fields, but the standard has been evolving to allow UTF-8 in more places. Maybe whatever code is in Groups.io's message display processing isn't handling UTF-8 encoding correctly, causing it to fail when attempting to access the image.

So if you're up for further tests, try ensuring that the file names do not contain any "fancy" punctuation -- nothing outside of the "plain" ASCII punctuation marks.

That can be a little tricky when copying things from (especially Word) documents, as documents tend to use "fancy" characters ¡ª like em-dash, en-dash, and left and right ¡°quotation¡± marks; often automatically converting "plain" marks to "fancy" as you type.

Shal


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?Shal Farley wrote: This is kind of an odd theory, and I've not tested it, but the only difference I'm seeing between what does not display right in GMF, and what does in shalstest, is the file name. In particular, the one in GMF included an en-dash character.
=====================================================================================================

It's funny, but I had the same thought. When I have time tomorrow I'll test it. I think you might be right.

tommy0421

?Shal Farley wrote: This is kind of an odd theory, and I've not tested it, but the only difference I'm seeing between what does not display right in GMF, and what does in shalstest, is the file name. In particular, the one in GMF included an en-dash character.
======================================================================

I thought I had replied to this but apparently I have not. Shal was right, it was the en-dash character. That is a dash preceded by a space and followed by a space. But the image also failed to display when posted to Shal's test group even with the spaces before and after the dash deleted but the dash still there. (Technically creating a hyphen, I think?)

This all came about after a member included an image in a message they sent to one of my groups. The message file name included an en dash. They were very disappointed when the image failed to display in their message when posted. But the dash was the problem. Lesson being, DO NOT use dashes when naming image files.

tommy0421

This all came about after a member included an image in a message they sent to one of my groups. The message file name included an en dash. They were very disappointed when the image failed to display in their message when posted. But the dash was the problem. Lesson being, DO NOT use dashes when naming image files.

Just to clarify for those who may not know there are three kinds of dashes: hyphen, en dash, and em dash. The hyphen is shortest and can be used in file names.

The en and em dashes cannot. They are special typesetting characters. The en dash joins words that are not hyphenated but are used in a string as adjectives, and the em dash sets off phrases within a sentence.

In many typefaces, it is hard to tell the difference. The en is supposed to be the width of an N, and the em the width of an M but they often are not.

And depending on the settings, in some word processing programs accidently typing two hyphens may produce an em dash that you don¡¯t notice but the computer does.

Sharon
¡ª¡ª¡ª
Sharon Villines

[email protected]
To subscribe:
[email protected]

An oddity here. When I viewed the failed image sent to my group it was on the webpage and later in the daily digest I receive. Same thing when I tested the file name on Shal's test group today. I posted from the website, using Add picture to add the original file but with the spaces removed. It didn't display on the web page. In Shal's group I'm in individual email mode so a copy of my message was emailed to me. I had actually forgotten I was getting individual emails from the test group. When I saw there was a copy of the message in my inbox and opened it, the image does seem properly displayed.

Apparently what does not work on a Groups.io webpage may work in the email copy of that message. Of course, it was already pointed out that the difference is code. If I'm remembering correctly, most email programs can read UFT-8. Groups.io webpage apparently can not.

Is that close? :)

tommy0421

tommy0421,

I thought I had replied to this but apparently I have not.

You did: /g/GroupManagersForum/message/33139

... it was the en-dash character. That is a dash preceded by a space
and followed by a space.

As Sharon alluded, spaces do not an en-dash make.

In the email message hyphen, en-dash, em-dash, and other horizontal line shaped characters, are all represented by different character codes (code points, in Unicode parlance). They may look alike on your screen, but they are not the same to a program parsing the message content.

Where the confusion comes in is that some document-processing applications, and MS-Word in particular, will auto-convert come combinations of keystrokes into alternate characters. That's a "convenience" feature because keyboards standardized around a relatively limited typewriter-based set of keys, but document typography commonly uses many more characters ("marks") than there are keys on a keyboard.

But the image also failed to display when posted to Shal's test group
even with the spaces before and after the dash deleted but the dash
still there. (Technically creating a hyphen, I think?)

Nope. I'm not sure what program you were using when deleting the spaces, but that wouldn't normally change the identity of the character between them.

But the dash was the problem. Lesson being, DO NOT use dashes when
naming image files.

Not typographic dashes, but hyphens are innocent.

The other lesson is: DO report this bug on beta, maybe Mark can fix the parsing to handle such cases. That could result in the already posted messages displaying properly.

Shal


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tommy0421,

Apparently what does not work on a Groups.io webpage may work in the
email copy of that message.

I mentioned that earlier.

It would depend on the particular email interface used to view the message. Some might also have a problem with non-ASCII characters in the img src filename.

If I'm remembering correctly, most email programs can read UFT-8.

Well, Eudora can't. But it was discontinued long ago.

Groups.io webpage apparently can not.

Is that close? :)

Close, but the problem is specifically UTF-8 encoding in the filename passed as part of the source reference to an embedded image.

In the text of the message Groups.io handles UTF-8 encoded characters just fine. For example in the popular shrug emoji ?\_(¥Ä)_/? the hands and face are UTF-8 encoded characters. Only the arms and sides of the head are ASCII characters.

Shal


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It is surprising how many folks don't know it is easy to enter many special characters that are not on the standard computer keyboard, using both Windows and Apple computers.

ASCII is a 7-bit character set and is quite limited but UTF-8 is a variable-width character set capable of encoding 1,112,064 valid character code points in Unicode using one to four one-byte code units. As Shal pointed out below, groups.io messages handle UTF-8 characters, though in practice very few of the many combinations are needed for our simple textual emails.

I use many of these multi-keystroke characters in my emails and have found them easy to enter into my local-client Thunderbird emails in Windows. Similar multi-keystroke characters are available in Apple OS but I have no experience actually testing them. Replies to my emails suggest the characters all seem to reproduce as intended, though I offer no guarantee of that, especially if you are not using Windows and a local client like Thunderbird. You will need to test them yourself.

I would never choose to use any of these special characters in a file name, but only in message text. The problem discussed in this GMF topic relates to improper use of special characters in file names. It is likely the method described below was used to enter the en dash in the photo file name; really, it should have been rejected there as an invalid filename.

These multi-keystroke characters are entered by holding down the ALT (or, Option) key and then simultaneously pressing the additional digits but you must use the numeric keypad, not the number keys on the standard keyboard. In my abbreviated sample table below the "+" means "and."

Character Windows Apple OS

Hyphen: -
en dash: ¨C ALT+0150 Option+hyphen
em dash: ¡ª ALT+0151 Option+shift+hyphen
Degree: ¡ã ALT+0176 Option+shift+8
+/-: ¡À ALT+0176 Option+shift+=
Pi: ¦Ð ALT+227
Micro: ? ALT+0181 Option+m
Euro: € ALT+0128


Note that the hyphen, en dash and the em dash are all available and reproduce as intended in Thunderbird. I don't use the groups.io web interface to create messages so I have not tested that.

There are *many* more of these multi-keystroke characters available but, often, not all you really want to use are listed on the same website; you may need to do multiple searches to find what you want. One place to start is here:



Larry

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Larry McDavid W6FUB
Anaheim, California (SE of Los Angeles, near Disneyland)

On Sat, Aug 8, 2020 at 10:13 PM, Larry McDavid wrote:

it is easy to enter many special characters that are not on the standard computer keyboard, using both Windows and Apple computers.

Unless it¡¯s windows laptops, no Num pads.?

It kills me not being able to enter a null character sometimes, when a space doesn¡¯t make it in certain situations/software.?