XADM: A Signed E-Mail Message Is Truncated and You Cannot Open It Again After You Reply or Forward

View products that this article applies to.

This article was previously published under Q330893

Symptoms

If you use an Outlook 2000 client to open and forward or reply to a signed message that was sent from Outlook Express and received in an Exchange 2000 mailbox, as soon as you close or save the original message, the size of the message changes to 64 kilobytes (KB), and you cannot open this message again. You may also receive the following Outlook error message:

Your digital ID name cannot be found by the underlying security system.

The forwarded e-mail message can be opened and read with no problem.

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Cause

This problem occurs only if the following conditions are true:

The original e-mail message is an HTML message that is signed, contains an attachment, and is larger than 64 KB.
The original e-mail message was sent from Outlook Express.

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Resolution

Cumulative Patch Information

To resolve this problem, obtain the March 2003 Exchange 2000 Server Post-Service Pack 3 (SP3) Rollup. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

813840� XGEN: March 2003 Exchange 2000 Server Post-Service Pack 3 Rollup

Hotfix Information

A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft. However, this hotfix is intended to correct only the problem that is described in this article. Apply this hotfix only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem.

If the hotfix is available for download, there is a "Hotfix download available" section at the top of this Knowledge Base article. If this section does not appear, submit a request to Microsoft Customer Service and Support to obtain the hotfix.

Note If additional issues occur or if any troubleshooting is required, you might have to create a separate service request. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for this specific hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Customer Service and Support telephone numbers or to create a separate service request, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support

Note The "Hotfix download available" form displays the languages for which the hotfix is available. If you do not see your language, it is because a hotfix is not available for that language. Component: MDB

The English version of this fix has the file attributes (or later) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in coordinated universal time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.

   Date         Time   Version      Size    File name
   --------------------------------------------------
   26/11/2002   00:01  6.0.6372.0   3,82MB  Cdoex.dll
   26/11/2002   00:01  6.0.6372.0   3,48MB  Excdo.dll
   25/11/2002   23:40  6.0.6372.0    252KB  Exmime.dll
   25/11/2002   23:46  6.0.6372.0   1,65MB  Exoledb.dll
   25/11/2002   22:36  6.0.6372.0   2,20MB  Mdbmsg.dll
   25/11/2002   22:21  6.0.6372.0     32KB  Mdbrole.dll
   25/11/2002   23:39  6.0.6372.0   4,48MB  Store.exe

Note Because of file dependencies, this update requires Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server Service Pack 3 (SP3). For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

301378� How to Obtain the Latest Exchange 2000 Server Service Pack

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Workaround

To work around this problem, use one of the following methods:

Use encryption when you send a signed message.
Move or copy the message that you received to the desktop or to a personal folder before you forward it
Use Outlook 2002.

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Status

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server.

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More information

This problem also occurs if you are using the latest release of Microsoft Office Service Pack 3 (SP3). The problem occurs even if you try different certificates.

The problem does not occur if:

The message size is less than 64 KB.
You are using Microsoft Outlook 2002 and Exchange 2000 on the operating system Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 2 (SP2).
You are using Outlook 2000 and Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 (Exchange Server) on the operating system Windows 2000 SP2.
You are running Outlook 2002 and Exchange Server on the operating system Windows 2000 SP2.
The signed e-mail message was sent from Outlook Express in Rich Text Format (RTF) and encrypted, even if the message size is larger than 64 KB.
The signed e-mail message was sent from Outlook Express in plain text format, even if the message size is larger than 64 KB.
The signed e-mail message was sent from another Outlook 2000 user on the same server, even if the message size is larger than 64 KB and the message format is HTML.
You move or copy the signed e-mail message to a personal folder before you forward or reply to it.
You drag the signed e-mail message to the Windows desktop, and then open the message from the desktop before you forward or reply to it.

The .eml file shows that the attachment is truncated as soon as the 64 KB size is reached, which makes it impossible to open. The original e-mail message is irrevocably damaged.

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