[Users] yahoo's garbage

[Steve Litt]

On Fri, 11 Oct 2013 19:39:56 -0400
Pierre Fortin <pf at pfortin.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 11 Oct 2013 23:31:58 +0100 Sharon Kimble wrote:
> 
> >I'm seeing lots of emails like this over the last week - 
> >=================================
> >Subject: [wikidPad] Technique or plugin to get word counts?
> >Date: 11 Oct 2013 15:01:32 -0700
> >Reply-To: wikidPad at yahoogroups.com
> >Sender: wikidPad at yahoogroups.com
> >X-Mailer: Yahoo Groups Message Poster
> >
> >SGVsbG8sDQoNCklzIHRoZXJlIGEgd2F5IHRvIGdldCB0aGUgd29yZCBjb3VudHMgZm9yIGEg
> >cGFydGljdWxhciBhcnRpY2xlPyBJJ3ZlIGJlZW4gdGhyb3VnaCBhbGwgdGhlIG1lbnVzIGFu
> >ZCBoYXZlbid0IHNlZW4gYW55dGhpbmcuDQoNClRoYW5rcyENCk1hcms=
> >==================================
> >
> >which, if you click the text/html icon to the right of claws-mail,
> >you get the html version of the email which was previously covered
> >up by garbage! This is what that email actually said -
> >==================================
> >Hello,
> >
> >Is there a way to get the word counts for a particular article? I've
> >been through all the menus and haven't seen anything.
> >==================================
> >
> >The commonality is that all the emails are coming through from 'yahoo
> >groups'. This seems to have started about the time that yahoo changed
> >its desktop display. So, is it possible to have a new plugin, which
> >will convert the garbage into [A] plain text, or [B] html please?
> >
> >Thanks
> >Sharon.
> 
> It's just base64 encoding.  Paul answered a similar question in 2009:
> http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.mail.sylpheed.claws.general/41591
> 
> It may be possible to write an filter/action/script to "fix" the
> message; but there may be more convolutions than is worth dealing
> with...
> 
> Pierre

I've narrowed the commonality a little more. It seems like all the
base64 body messages have an X-Mailer value of "Yahoo Groups Message
Poster". Other emails on the same list not having that X-Mailer come
through just fine.

As you mentioned, Thunderbird displays these messages just fine, but
then again, it displays them in HTML format, which isn't what I want.

So, in configuration->Actions, I made an action called yahoo_fix, with
the following command:

|base64 -b|

Then, configuration->Preferences->Toolbars->Mainwindow I made a new
user action toolbar button, which calls my yahoo_fix action. Now, on
receiving a yahoo contaminated email, I highlight the body, click the
yahoo_fix button, and bang, I can read it. I put the button on the
message toolbar too so if I didn't want to keep doing this when I
referred back to a message, I could just open it in a separate window.

Be aware that you must highlight the body. If you do this action to the
whole email, you'll get an error message saying "base 64, bad input".

HTH,

SteveT


Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt                *  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance