forwarding html-formatted email turns into plaintext Win8.1 TB78.10.1
when forwarding an html-formatted msg, i usually prefer to convert to Plain so i have the Send Options set to 'send as plaintext when possible' and, on rare occasions when i want it to go in HTML i use Shift-(click on ForwardButton) to override the plaintext conversion. lately this has resulted in a message that displays as obviously html, as desired, but when i hit Send and then go look in Sent folder to see result, it is in plaintext and recipient reports that it came out Plaintext. further, sometimes pursuant to no observable provocation, when i hit Send i get error message: <Sending of the message failed. Unable to open the temporary file C:\Users\SIDCOW~1\AppData\Local\Temp\nsmail.tmp. Check your 'Temporary Directory' setting.>
however, sometimes, and sometimes not, when i click Send again, the message sends without further backtalk, but again arrives in Plaintext. the SIDCOW reference in the filename presumably refers to a folder i have unwittingly established in Users when i gave myself the fanciful name SidCowznofski at the time i originally set up this computer. i have searched using File Explorer and cannot find a file in Users which contains the text string SIDCOWZNOFSKI1 or SidCowznofski1 in its name. (many subfolders labeled with a version of SidCowznofski, but none having the <1> after S...nofski) maybe i am not using the Search function correctly? i am new to this. oddly, when i right-click my account name at top of (folder pane?) then settings>composition & addressing and check 'compose messages in html format', then try to forward an html message in html format by Shift-clicking Forward, the draft forwarded message immediately displays in Plaintext. it doesn't seem to make any difference whether i have the addressee in my address book set to <prefers to receive messages in html format> or <prefers to receive messages in plaintext format>. i am accustomed to getting the alert when sending html to the latter, which asks me to choose the format for this particular message. even temporarily changing the addressee's setting in the address book, to html, does not seem to ameliorate this problem. i can click the Menu icon at upper right of display, Options>Composition>forward messages as attachment, and then forwarding the html message apparently yields the attached msg in html at the recipient end, but i don't really want to forward ALL my messages as attachments by default, and it's kind of fiddly to go back and forth into the menu>options>composition thing every time i want to just forward the occasional msg in its original html format. is there any way around this? i doubt if it matters but i just noticed when looking up the TB version in my files that it's the 32-bit and i think this machine is 64. not sure how that happened. TIA for taking the time to read this.
All Replies (4)
Two issues here.
1. Unable to open the temporary file C:\Users\SIDCOW~1\AppData\Local\Temp\nsmail.tmp. Check your 'Temporary Directory' setting.> is most usually caused by anti virus scanning. Avast has a long history here. But creating a exemption in the anti virus for that file usually helps.
2. In options search for "send options" and click the button. Turn off the option to send as plain text when possible. This default converts HTML to plain text if there are no HTML specific contents, which would make you see it as somewhat random changes after sending.
thanks matt. 1) i turned off real-time protection in Windows Defender (AFAIK i don't have Avast) and tried forwarding another html msg, this time to myself, and it worked fine. then i tried to send the same one to a friend and got the error message described above. ?? actually i'd be comfortable with no antivirus, i ran Win7 that way for several years with no problem. (i'm pretty careful about clicking links and going to unknown websites). however i don't see that i have improved my position by temporarily turning off WD. also i found that after getting the error message i could click Send a second time and it would send the Plaintext version.
2)i turned *off* 'send as plaintext when possible'. just before i got the result described above.
thanks for your time & trouble attempting to help, however i don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. it still puzzles me that i cannot find the supposed Temp file using the File Explorer.
You can not find it probably because as soon as the send is done it is deleted. Wen you click send a temp file is created with the actual EML formatted email in it. That is nsmail.tmp, when the send if done the file is deleted., or supposed to be. This is a very old part of Thunderbird dating from Netscape hence the NS in the file name.
You may also be running into the fact windows explorer hides the temp folder and it's contents, so searches for files in the hidden folder return nothing. The same extends to the Thunderbird profile folder.
In the file manager/Explorer type %tmp% into the location bar at the top and press enter to have windows open the temp folder.
You might also want to run the windows disk cleanup utility. If the temp folder is cluttered it might just be the number of files in there that is causing the issue. Microsoft article here
wow matt, you've given me a lot to think about. starting with your last suggestion first, in Win 8.1 the disk cleanup thing is very similar to the Win10 procedure you referenced. the menu i got showed less than 9Mb of Temp files and less than 1MB of Temp-Internet files (i just recently updated from Win8 to 8.1), so i don't see Temp folder clutter as an issue here.
so in File Explorer i used the folder identity you suggested %tmp% and it returned a whole swath (over 90) of small files named nsemail-xx, where (-xx)= (no character) thru -92 and had a tiny TB icon next to each one. they were all dated 07 May '21 or 08 May '21. when i opened a few of them i discovered they were outgoing email messages (this is a measure of my ignorance, i had no idea that these files are just email messages), with send dates from as early as 06 Apr '21 (this may be the date i "upgraded" from Win8 to Win8.1). puzzled as to why the ones representing emails sent in April are files dated 07 May 21. also i looked at Properties for a few of them and they were Read Only. not sure if this is relevant. and also looked at a couple of the ones that *should* have been html formatted and the message body was blank. not sure where to go from here. but anyway thanks for all the volunteer time & energy you've put into this.