Conference iosg::all-in-1

2597.0. "\ in title gets converted to hex 1a, blows groupwise" by VELI::KORKKO (Veli K�rkk� @FNO, 879-5512) Tue Apr 01 1997 21:24

        I am investigating problem between two customer mail systems.
        One is our FM customer and they are running ALL-IN-1 V3.1
        Finnish on a OpenVMS V6.2, DECnet/OSI V6.3 system. Some users
        are running Teamlinks (V2.7) while most users are still on VT.
        External messaging is via MR/MRX.
        
        The other party is running Groupwise and they are using some
        package called Router400(???).
        
        Now the problem is that messages from TL user (via
        ALL-IN-1->MR->MRX->admin domains->Groupwise) are not received
        when these messages contain MSword or Excel attachments.
        
        In fact, I was able to trace this down to the way PC user send
        .XLS or .DOC.
        
        Seems that user creats a message (on TL) and the attaches e.q.
        .XLS file (from DOS path) to the created message. Therefore the
        attachment gets title like C:\MSOFFICE\WINDWORD\RR.DOC at the
        ALL-IN-1 file cabinet.
        
        Now, apparently \ is "forbidden" and therefore it is converted
        to hex 1A (control-Z) by MRX. Therefore, when I receive the
        message to my ALL-IN-1 system, I can see something like 
        
                              Index of Attachments
 (Selections: 0  )                                          (New messages: 0  )
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   No.   Type      Created             Title:       EDL: KOKEILU KESKOMETALLIST
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 > 1     MAIL      01-Apr-1997 15:06   KOKEILU KESKOMETALLISTA
   2     DOCUMENT  01-Apr-1997 15:06   C:MSOFFICEWINWORDRR.DOC
   3     MAIL      01-Apr-1997 15:06   TESTI KESKOMETALLISTA
   4     DOCUMENT  01-Apr-1997 15:06   C:MSOFFICEEXCELRR.XLS
   5     MAIL      01-Apr-1997 15:06   KOKEILU
   6     DOCUMENT  01-Apr-1997 15:06   C:MSOFFICEEXCELRR.XLS


        where the  is infact hex 1a. Now, I do not have problem at all
        with this but the receiving groupwise or their X.400 gtwy
        appears to "lose" six characters whenever they see hex 1A. E.q.
        they see title as "C:ICERDC" when it really was
        "C:\MSOFFICE\WINDWORD\RR.DOC" at the originating end.
        
        And if there happens to be "forbidden" character in the last 5
        characters of title, the message is lost.
        
        Now, how do I (or the customer) avoid those \ in title? The best
        solution would be to get fix to groupwise gateway but that
        probably takes time...
        
        _veli

    Is there an MRX configuration change to stop it doing the conversion of
    backslashes? Or to make them into a different character?
    
    Or teach the users to change the titles of the messages before sending
    them?
    
    In any case, I don't see that it's an ALL-IN-1 problem.

        Neither do I see this as ALL-IN-1 problem. And maybe using U to
        update the title is best inermediate solution while waiting the
        other end to fix their gateway.
        
        Any way, other people may have hit with this too. 
        
        _veli

I have worked on a Achedemic site where they were a very heavy user of
GroupWise.  I remember similier problems so I got in touch with the senior
EMail guy there and this his his reply (may not be of help but you might find
interesting as he singles out the 3rd party gateways):-

>>>>>>>>>

 I have had bad experiences with
these 3rd-party mail routing programs  -  they
nearly always **** you up by being only partly
compatible with the systems they claim to be able
to connect to.  I would always put the finger on
them rather than your end systems like All in One
or GroupWise.  The middleware is supposed to sort
out any differences between the end systems - but
in my experience they are badly designed, badly
written and are impossible to get decent support
for because they tend to be minority products.

GroupWise itself is not a X400-compliant product
(although Novell likes to say it is), and so the
gateway software is 3rd-party.  Another place
where things can go wrong due to either (a)
non-adherence to standards or (b) too slavish
adherence to standards - you're batted either way!
[Posted by WWW Notes gateway]

re .1 >> is there an MRX configuration change

Yes there is, although I don't remember which switch it is offhand.  We had an
almost identical problem for another customer that was resolved in the same way.

Your other option is to use ALL-IN-1 V3.2 with a direct connection to MAILbus
400, thereby obviating the need for MRX.  ALL-IN-1 converts the reverse solidus
characters (which aren't allowed in T.61 strings as used in X.400-land) to
spaces, which causes less problems than using a control character.

It seems that having DIGITAL products be standards-conformant is a mixed
blessing...

Scott