XFOR: IMC: Empty or Partial Messages Received

 Last reviewed: April 3, 1997
Article ID: Q140935
The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Exchange Server, version 4.0

SYMPTOMS

If an incoming SMTP message contains a period (.) at the beginning of a new line (crlf), the message may be missing all or parts of the message body.

CAUSE

The Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Connector (IMC) interprets the period at the beginning of a new line as the data-end sequence. It looks for the final crlf and does not retain any other characters on that line.

MORE INFORMATION

The SMTP specification (RFC 821) defines the end of a message by a crlf.crlf sequence. If a message contains a period at the beginning of a new line, the RFC 821, section 4.5.2 number 1, requires an additional period to be added by the sending host. It also requires the receiving host to keep looking for more characters on the line, even if the double period is not there, (Section 4.5.2, number 2).

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Exchange Server version 4.0. This problem was corrected in the latest Microsoft Exchange Server U.S. Service Pack. For information on obtaining the Service Pack, query on the following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces): 

   S E R V P A C K
The IMC will now correctly look for and retain other characters on the same line, and not assume the message ends.

KBCategory: kbusage
KBSubcategory: XFOR
Additional query words:4.00
Keywords : kbbug4.00 kbfix4.00.sp2 kbusage XFOR
Version : 4.0 5.0
Platform : WINDOWS

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Last reviewed: April 3, 1997
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