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Images not showing, In most HTML e-mails all images just show as a strange grey placeholder
 
#26
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Warner - My ticket number is: 95264

Yesterday I received the following reply:

"There must be a setting on your computer that stops the download of external image from certain sources.

At this point we have no clue what might cause the issue and cannot offer a solution, unfortunately."

I replied giving a second link to this forum post suggesting that there was something wrong with Vers 10, if people have been able to view images in vers 9 and ten  minutes later having upgraded to vers 10 they are unable to view them.  Certainly in those cases there would NOT be a "setting on the computer" which was at fault.

I'm NOT certain but on my previous version 6.8.8 all HTML emails displayed an icon which if when clicked offered the option to display the email using a browser and I seem to remember doing that.  Then I could see the images and print off such emails through the browser's facility.  With vers 10 I'm unable to do that.

I only upgraded to vers 10 because GMX mail sent me an email saying that they were NOT going to support email clients  using TLS 1.0 & 1.1 in future. An upgrade seemed the logical choice.
 
 
 
#27
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This is the reply I received from TB:

"The difference is that in The Bat! v9.3.4 Image Download Manager appeared - this is the tool that controls external media retrieval.

If this was a program error, the images would not be downloaded on our computers as well. Only few users report similar issues, which means certain internet options or external programs may block the image download in these cases".

There you go!

I wonder how many "only a few users" are there?
 
 
 
#28
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David (and others), please stop making baseless nefarious assumptions about Ritlabs. They're getting old and my patience is wearing thin.

Quote
David Payne wrote:
I'm NOT certain but on my previous version 6.8.8 all HTML emails displayed an icon which if when clicked offered the option to display the email using a browser and I seem to remember doing that.

If you don't see a separate pane with file icons in messages that have attachments, you should see an icon in the message header (to the right of the sender and recipient names, the subject, etc). Either one should allow you to launch the HTML message in your browser.

See https://www.ritlabs.com/en/support/help/68/#6620
I volunteer as a moderator to help keep the forum tidy. I do not work for Ritlabs SRL.
 
 
 
#29
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Daniel, I apologize if it sounds like I'm making baseless claims. I'm not. It's just frustrating that, for me at least, an update to v10 would mean loss of functionality. It's not that I have to upgrade, but I've been using The Bat! for years and would like to support Ritlabs by upgrading. On the other hand, I really don't want to do that for a product that I don't think I'll be using, if you see my point.

I understand v10 is a big rewrite, and Ritlabs probably has more important issues to fix. It's just this is the one issue that stops me from wanting to use it.
 
 
 
#30
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Quote
Daniel van Rooijen wrote:

If you don't see a separate pane with file icons in messages that have attachments, you should see an icon in the message header (to the right of the sender and recipient names, the subject, etc). Either one should allow you to launch the HTML message in your browser.

See  https://www.ritlabs.com/en/support/help/68/#6620

If I understood everything correctly, the issue is not with attached images, but rather images stored on external servers that can be downloaded and displayed within HTML messages inside TB! I can imagine that the interactions between security settings of Windows, anti-virus, malware (etc.) software, servers, Chromium and TB! are a rabbit hole that is hard to navigate. I can only assume that TB! (or Chromium) may have changed something between v9 and v10 that could even be more "correct" in a security sense, but can hinder the usability of viewing such external images for some users.

(Personally, I view such images manually only when I feel it is absolutely necessary, so I didn't experience such issues yet.)
Edited: Miloš Radovanović - 28 May 2022 19:16:29
 
 
 
#31
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Quote
Miloš Radovanović wrote:
If I understood everything correctly, [..]

In the message that I responded to, David Payne was asking about HTML messages and how to open them in his browser. So, a different issue than what most of this thread has been about.

Quote
I can imagine that the interactions between security settings of Windows, anti-virus, malware (etc.) software, servers, Chromium and TB! are a rabbit hole that is hard to navigate.

Yes. And several more potential causes could contribute, but that's for Ritlabs to break their heads over.

Quote
Warner Y wrote:
Daniel, I apologize if it sounds like I'm making baseless claims.

Well, my comments were not triggered by anything that you said, but I think you have been (inadvertently, I'm sure) misrepresenting the problem as well. When you said "but the fact remains that email client like Thunderbird warns first, then allows the images if you confirm" -- well, The Bat has always done the same thing, through its "Download embedded images from external sites" setting and the associated download manager. So, the inference that The Bat is somehow inferior in this respect to Thunderbird is untrue. The problem is that on some people's systems, images from some external servers are being blocked in The Bat in spite of the setting that should allow them. Whether this blocking is caused by The Bat, by its Chromium HTML component, by the operating system, by anti-malware, by a firewall or yet another possible cause, or a combination of some of these, is yet to be determined.

Anyway, factual criticism is perfectly fine, as are bug and error reports of all kinds, but I won't accept snide remarks that question Ritlabs' willingness to recognize and solve problems, or their ability to do so. Ritlabs' has a 24-year history of excellent, well-maintained products and excellent customer service, and they deserve better than that.
I volunteer as a moderator to help keep the forum tidy. I do not work for Ritlabs SRL.
 
 
 
#32
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For all who's have this bug: Give us few .msg/.eml samples with a bug through some filesharing service like dropbox/yadisk.
Модератор. Не являюсь сотрудником RitLabs (I'm not an employee of Ritlabs). https://belrus.biz/vendors/ritlabs.html
 
 
 
#33
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Quote
Daniel van Rooijen wrote:
Quote
Miloš Radovanović wrote:
If I understood everything correctly, [..]

In the message that I responded to, David Payne was asking about HTML messages and how to open them in his browser. So, a different issue than what most of this thread has been about.
Right. Of course.

I was wondering myself where the option do display HTML parts of messages as attachments had gone (sometime in v9 I think), so now I found it: Options -> Preferences -> Viewer/Editor -> Display HTML-related message parts as attachments. I tried a few messages, external images are displayed consistently in the browser.
 
 
 
#34
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>>  I tried a few messages, external images are displayed consistently in the browser.
All of us glad that your browser shows it. Question is about TB!.


Quote
Give us few .msg/.eml samples with a bug through some filesharing service like dropbox/yadisk.
Модератор. Не являюсь сотрудником RitLabs (I'm not an employee of Ritlabs). https://belrus.biz/vendors/ritlabs.html
 
 
 
#35
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Quote
Miloš Radovanović wrote:
I was wondering myself where the option do display HTML parts of messages as attachments had gone (sometime in v9 I think), so now I found it: Options -> Preferences -> Viewer/Editor -> Display HTML-related message parts as attachments.

Thanks for the additional information -- still using v8.x myself, I hadn't noticed that The Bat can now hide HTML-related attachments. So, David may have to change that setting too if he wants to see the message.html attachment, which he can then open in his browser.
I volunteer as a moderator to help keep the forum tidy. I do not work for Ritlabs SRL.
 
 
 
#36
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Quote
Daniel van Rooijen wrote:
Quote
Miloš Radovanović wrote:
I was wondering myself where the option do display HTML parts of messages as attachments had gone (sometime in v9 I think), so now I found it: Options -> Preferences -> Viewer/Editor -> Display HTML-related message parts as attachments.

Thanks for the additional information -- still using v8.x myself, I hadn't noticed that The Bat can now hide HTML-related attachments. So, David may have to change that setting too if he wants to see the message.html attachment, which he can then open in his browser.
I'm glad to be of help. Yeah, TB! must have defaulted to not displaying HTML parts of messages as attachments around the time CEF was introduced in v9. I didn't even notice since CEF has been working fine for me.
 
 
 
#37
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In options, I've set HTML Viewer to "Automatically for all sources". There is a Download Media button in the message viewer. Whether I choose Download Image for Current Message, or "Allow all images->Sites in this message" or "Download all images", I don't get any images in my Costco emails. This is in the latest version, 10.0.10.

I've shared the latest Costco email as an EML file here: https://app.box.com/s/7lhbntl1us3g9jt5oto6ilkmz5jafv3u Please don't click the unsubscribe links or anything.


If I double-click on the EML file on my system, it opens in MS Outlook. Initially, it doesn't display images, but there's a button to let me show all images, at which point it works. I'm not sure what else I can do, but maybe one of you can look at the message and figure this out.
 
 
 
#38
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Quote
Warner Y wrote:
I'm not sure what else I can do, but maybe one of you can look at the message and figure this out.
I took a look, and indeed no images are downloaded (also v10.0.10). However, every browser I tried also failed to display the images. Finally, I get an Access Denied error when I try to access costco dot com. I guess my country is blocked by them, so I'm not in a good position to do much more right now.
 
 
 
#39
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>> I've shared the latest Costco email as an EML file here: https://app.box.com/s/7lhbntl1us3g9jt5oto6ilkmz5jafv3u
Nor TB!, nor browser (sic!) don't shows this images. If even browser don't shows - this is fault of your email-sender!

And here a trick - if you enable VPN with country US then that images shows in the browser.
Модератор. Не являюсь сотрудником RitLabs (I'm not an employee of Ritlabs). https://belrus.biz/vendors/ritlabs.html
 
 
 
#40
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Quote
George Salnik wrote:
And here a trick - if you enable VPN with country US then that images shows in the browser.
OK, I tried a browser VPN and a system-wide VPN, and both enable images to be viewed in the browser make costco dot com accessible. But images in TB! - still nothing for that message. I'll try to dig deeper when time permits. I'm hoping it could be something simple, like a CEF configuration setting.
 
 
 
#41
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Warner:  

Did you try Milos' suggestion:  "I was wondering myself where the option do display HTML parts of messages as attachments had gone (sometime in v9 I think), so now I found it: Options -> Preferences -> Viewer/Editor -> Display HTML-related message parts as attachments. I tried a few messages, external images are displayed consistently in the browser".

It has worked for me, now all emails containing HTML bits/pieces display the HTML logo in a separate pane, which when clicked gives me the option to open the email in my browser.  Something I've been doing in the last 3 versions of TB which I've purchased since the '90s.  A feature I'm very happy with.  As I understood it from the very first version, opening in a browser was a security feature, isolating TB from HTML vulnerabilities.

For some reason the feature was NOT enabled when I upgraded.  Almost all other features are the same as my previous versions, except (thus far) some reply fonts have changed from black to green etc....... something for later.

Milos:  

Thank you very much.

Daniel:

"If you don't see a separate pane with file icons in messages that have attachments, you should see an icon in the message header (to the right of the sender and recipient names, the subject, etc). Either one should allow you to launch the HTML message in your browser."

Thank you.

Well, for me the icon was neither in a pane NOR in the message header.   Vers 10 now shows the yellow/blue icon in the message header.  There is NO option that I can see to open in a browser.

I have over 1200 emails saved in TB, un-ticked only one actually displayed the HTML icon in a separate pane.  That was from Private Eye Magazine, clicking the HTML icon just showed exactly the same message as the one in plain text, there was NO image whatsoever and to my untrained eye, both were identical.

The simple click suggested by Milos now shows an icon within a pane for all messages which have anything to do with HTML.

It is for consideration that if you upgrade from vers 8 to 10 you might encounter the same problems as Warner, Richard, Sally, myself and "a few" others mentioned by TB Help?  I'd have thought TB would have given you a free up-grade!

All:

I now see no advantage of using the HTML viewer when I can continue to open such messages in the browser.  Disabling it would save space on my hard drive etc.  I'm very open to suggestions as to the benefits of using the viewer.

Thanks
 
 
 
#42
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Quote
David Payne wrote:
I'm very open to suggestions as to the benefits of using the viewer.

The built-in viewer won't execute any potentially malicious scripts and it won't compromise your privacy by connecting to external servers to fetch images, except if/when you want to.
I volunteer as a moderator to help keep the forum tidy. I do not work for Ritlabs SRL.
 
 
 
#43
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Quote
David Payne wrote:
As I understood it from the very first version, opening in a browser was a security feature, isolating TB from HTML vulnerabilities.
Quote
Daniel van Rooijen wrote:
Quote
David Payne wrote:
I'm very open to suggestions as to the benefits of using the viewer.

The built-in viewer won't execute any potentially malicious scripts and it won't compromise your privacy by connecting to external servers to fetch images, except if/when you want to.

My thoughts exactly. The tables have turned since the olden days of the Interwebs: whereas back then browsers would protect TB! users from HTML vulnerabilities, now TB! protects users from all the adware, tracking, etc. Granted, the same effect can be achieved by using an appropriate browser, but it is convenient to have it integrated into the e-mail client app.

Which brings me to my second point: overall convenience. No more switching windows, doing copy-paste when replying to HTML messages, etc. TBH, I never missed the ability to open HTML messages in a browser since CEF was introduced. The newly added feature of viewing PDF files is also pretty nice. However, CEF has been working flawlessly for me from the start.
 
 
 
#44
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Quote
Miloš Radovanović wrote:
Quote
George Salnik wrote:
And here a trick - if you enable VPN with country US then that images shows in the browser.
OK, I tried a browser VPN and a system-wide VPN, and both enable images to be viewed in the browser make costco dot com accessible. But images in TB! - still nothing for that message. I'll try to dig deeper when time permits. I'm hoping it could be something simple, like a CEF configuration setting.
I did a little digging, and it seems that there is no simple way to configure CEF, apart from recompiling it from source code which is by no means simple. So, I hit a wall...
 
 
 
#45
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Quote
David Payne wrote:
I now see no advantage of using the HTML viewer when I can continue to open such messages in the browser.  Disabling it would save space on my hard drive etc.
I tried the following exercise so you don't have to: I deleted the CEF and cef-data directories from the TB! installation directory and ran TB!

The result: after closing the initial (very tall) error message about missing CEF binaries, TB! continued working normally. Clicking on the HTML view tab didn't produce any errors, just an empty window. However, TB! wouldn't close normally, I had to End Task it. So, I wouldn't recommend using TB! this way.

One could say that the size difference shouldn't be relevant in 2022, but still, CEF takes up more than half of the whole TB! installation. The only way I see to safely disable it would be to submit a feature request through the support system to implement this option in the installer, also changing the defaults to show HTML message part icons in TB!.
 
 
 
#46
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Quote
Miloš Radovanović wrote:

I wouldn't recommend using TB! this way.

Yes, Milos you've convinced me  :)

Unfortunately I haven't got a clue what CEF is or what it does.  I have a CEF folder in my PC,....... Main

13 May - 99.2.14  and
24 May - 99.300.101

both about 23 Mbs

I contacted support regarding Displaying HTML message as attachments, suggesting that the option highlighted by yourself was set as a default.

> Preferences -> Viewer/Editor -> Display HTML-related message parts as attachments".

Their helpful reply: "Thank you for following up on this. We introduced that option upon the request of many users, so we believe we will keep that as default for now and see how it goes with the majority of the users in the future".

If I read the above correctly, those updating/purchasing to vers 10 will have "A-Tick-In-The-Box" to display HTML message parts as attachments.  If I didn't read it correctly, there will be NO tick in the box.
 
 
 
#47
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I'm quite sure that they meant that the current default setting, i.e. html-related attachments are not shown, will be maintained for now.

Their assessment that most users will prefer it this way may well be right. From a convenience and security point of view, it's a good choice. The attachments pane takes up useful screen space and opening html files in a browser is not without risk.

You wrote above: "As I understood it from the very first version, opening in a browser was a security feature, isolating TB from HTML vulnerabilities."

Again, that is incorrect. It is TB's html component, i.e. the internal html message reader, that isolates you from vulnerabilities.

When you open messages in a full web browser, you allow the sender to see that you have read the message (which confirms that your email address is 'live' and so, a valuable target for spam), it shows them a lot of information about your system (including identifiers that can be matched to profiles from other sources), in most cases it gives away your approximate location, but worst of all it allows them to run scripts that may exploit vulnerabilities to get full access to your system. Phishing mails are still the most popular method of spreading malware. You can avoid all that by using the internal html reader instead (purely theoratically, even the internal reader could have some vulnerabilities, but I haven't seen any reported yet).
I volunteer as a moderator to help keep the forum tidy. I do not work for Ritlabs SRL.
 
 
 
#48
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Quote
Daniel van Rooijen wrote:
You wrote above: "As I understood it from the very first version, opening in a browser was a security feature, isolating TB from HTML vulnerabilities."

Again, that is incorrect. It is TB's html component, i.e. the internal html message reader, that isolates you from vulnerabilities.
Thanks Daniel, no matter how many times I read this, I think the sentences are saying the same thing.  You, with you expert knowledge will have worded it better. Thanks.

I'm unable to make a second quote:  You wrote:

"When you open messages in a full web browser, you allow the sender to see that you have read the message (which confirms that your email address is 'live' and so, a valuable target for spam), it shows them a lot of information about your system (including identifiers that can be matched to profiles from other sources), in most cases it gives away your approximate location, but worst of all it allows them to run scripts that may exploit vulnerabilities to get full access to your system. Phishing mails are still the most popular method of spreading malware. You can avoid all that by using the internal html reader instead (purely theoratically, even the internal reader could have some vulnerabilities, but I haven't seen any reported yet)."

That's amazing, truly amazing. Thanks

For myself now that I have the tick in the box and following advice have the internal reader activated (48mb Cache) I'm pretty much able to see all images in  my emails.  I'll now take more care when opening emails, I rarely get any from anyone I haven't been in contact with, but if I do and TB doesn't show the HTML images, I'll try to resist opening them in my browser.  

Thanks again  
 
 
 
#49
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Quote
David Payne wrote:
Unfortunately I haven't got a clue what CEF is or what it does.  I have a CEF folder in my PC,....... Main13 May - 99.2.14  and24 May - 99.300.101both about 23 Mbs
CEF stands for Chromium Embedded Framework, it is an open-source library for embedding a Chromium browser in other applications. It replaced TB!'s own aging implementation sometime in v9. Basically, it is like using Chrome to view HTML e-mail messages, only without the associated dangers.

By 23 Mbs you meant 230? That's about the size of the CEF subdirectory in my TB! installation directory. This is where all main CEF files reside. From what I can see, there is no way to change any options for CEF "from the outside". Any CEF configuration setting done by TB! seems to be hard-coded in the executable, and there is no provision not to use CEF, its presence is assumed in a hard-coded way.
 
 
 
#50
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>> meant 230?
Is this a real problem for 2022 year?
Модератор. Не являюсь сотрудником RitLabs (I'm not an employee of Ritlabs). https://belrus.biz/vendors/ritlabs.html
 
 
 
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