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Cannot paste PrintScreen into new OWA 2013 email message

  • 17 replies
  • 5 have this problem
  • 14 views
  • Last reply by rwoodwar

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I have over 100 users using Firefox to access their email through OWA 2013. I initially installed Version 46.0.1, and everything worked perfectly. Recently I started having users complain that they were no longer able to Paste Screenshots directly into their email messages with Firefox. This always worked perfectly before with Firefox and it still works with Google Chrome. The steps users take are to logon to their OWA email account using Firefox, press the PrtScn button to copy their screen to the clipboard, open a new message (or reply to or forward an existing message), and then right click inside the message body and paste. They could also do a CTRL V and this would also paste the image into their message. At first I tried an uninstall and reinstall of Firefox and this worked for a while. They would have issues again the next time they logged onto their computer. Their seems to be something different between Version 46.0.1 and 50.0.1 because pasting a screenshot into a new message works in Version 46.0.1 and it does not work in 50.0.1. Please help...

I have over 100 users using Firefox to access their email through OWA 2013. I initially installed Version 46.0.1, and everything worked perfectly. Recently I started having users complain that they were no longer able to Paste Screenshots directly into their email messages with Firefox. This always worked perfectly before with Firefox and it still works with Google Chrome. The steps users take are to logon to their OWA email account using Firefox, press the PrtScn button to copy their screen to the clipboard, open a new message (or reply to or forward an existing message), and then right click inside the message body and paste. They could also do a CTRL V and this would also paste the image into their message. At first I tried an uninstall and reinstall of Firefox and this worked for a while. They would have issues again the next time they logged onto their computer. Their seems to be something different between Version 46.0.1 and 50.0.1 because pasting a screenshot into a new message works in Version 46.0.1 and it does not work in 50.0.1. Please help...

Chosen solution

rwoodwar said

What I found by viewing the source in Outlook 2010 is img src="data:image/png; This was the only line that had "img".

Well, there's the problem. A "data URI" is an encoded version of an image, but Outlook 2010 apparently doesn't display them (in Outlook 2007+, Word is the HTML renderer rather than IE, and it either disables or lacks support for numerous conventional HTML features, depending how how you look at it). See: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6070196/what-is-data-uri-support-like-in-major-email-client-software

If you view source in a message sent from OWA in Chrome, it probably has the more conventional cid: URL for the img rather than a data: URL.

I double checked again this morning and when I have dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled;false I can paste the screenshot into a new message, but the recipient does not receive it. If the setting is dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled;true I cannot paste a screenshot into the message at all.

Upon further reflection, I think that means that when the page's scripts are allowed to intercept the paste, they don't handle it properly and you end up with nothing, and when you block the scripts from intercepting the paste, they behave more like you dragged/dropped an attachment on the message. Except now in Firefox 50 the attachment is somehow getting converted to a data URI. ??

I'm assuming an Exchange upgrade isn't a short-term possibility...

Someone else using OWA 2013 perhaps could develop a workaround: for example, a script could be injected into the page which hides the new JavaScript objects/functions from the page so that it will fall back on older code.

For now, you might consider (1) switching your users to the Extended Support Release version of Firefox 45 and (2) filing a bug about this to see if a solution can be developed before the next ESR release in the Spring.

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Does anyone have any ideas???

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I realize you may be using a private installation of Exchange, but I think this is similar:

On https://outlook.live.com/owa/ when I paste a screenshot, a dashed rectangle appears and then after a few moments an image appears in it. During that time, it appears OWA is saving the image data as an attachment, since the address of the image embedded in the message is along the following lines (some parts shortened/edited):

https://attachment.outlook.office.net/owa/username@hotmail.com/service.svc/s/GetFileAttachment?id=blahblahblah&token=91e96246-etc&owa=outlook.live.com&isc=1

(I tested in Firefox 50.0)


Make sure the users haven't disabled websites from detecting clipboard actions (since a script needs to intercept the paste and extract the image data):

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste CLIP and pause while the list is filtered

(3) If the dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled preference is bolded and "user set" to false, double-click it to restore the default value of true

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I have tried this and it seems to work, but there is an issue. Before making this change, nothing happened when I would try to paste a screenshot into a new message. After making this change the screen shot appears in the new message, but the recipient of the message receives what looks like a place holder for the image. It is a little red X and you cannot do anything with it. I appreciate your help, and like I said prior to the 50.0.1 upgrade everything was working perfect. We have not made any changes to our servers, and no Windows Updates have been pushed.

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rwoodwar said

I have tried this and it seems to work, but there is an issue. Before making this change, nothing happened when I would try to paste a screenshot into a new message. After making this change the screen shot appears in the new message, but the recipient of the message receives what looks like a place holder for the image. It is a little red X and you cannot do anything with it.

I have to admit, I didn't test very extensively, I only emailed myself at the same address.

If you compare the image url in the message in Sent Items with the image url in the received message, is there any discrepancy? If the address is the same, perhaps the attachment is getting stripped for some reason.

There was a change in Firefox 50: it's the first version that supports the "items" property website scripts have been using to grab image data from the clipboard (or a drag/drop event) in Chrome. (https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/We.../items) Possibly OWA's Chrome code is now running in Firefox but it isn't really fully compatible with Firefox. I'm out of time to investigate further at the moment.

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Oops I read your message again a little closer, and we do not seem to be on the same page. By default the setting for "dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled" was set to TRUE and with it set this way nothing happens when I try and paste a screenshot into a new message. If I change the setting to FALSE, the screenshot shows up in the message, but the recipient does not the image.

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Thanks for you help. The recipients are using Outlook 2010 and their is no url in the message. Just a red x.

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rwoodwar said

The recipients are using Outlook 2010 and their is no url in the message. Just a red x.

They would have to right-click a blank area of the message, View Source, then in Notepad where the message source opens, use Find to search for <img to look for the URL. Typically, attached images are referenced using a URL similar to src="cid:2d3c7f05-24a4-etc-etc-etc" (your GUID will vary). If the src URLs appear to be logically formed but you don't see an actual image, the attachment might have gotten stripped.

But... if the OWA is on Exchange 2010, it may be using older code for the paste interception. What I tested is probably equivalent to Exchange 2016 because Outlook.com is on the Office365 infrastructure.

Could you try to isolate this to a particular version, 47, 48, 49 or 50? As a tool for testing, you can use "portable" builds that download into and run from a separate folder. That will avoid interference with existing Firefox settings on your system.

Firefox 50.0: https://sourceforge.net/projects/portableapps/files/Mozilla Firefox, Portable Ed./Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition 50.0/

Firefox 49.0.2: https://sourceforge.net/projects/portableapps/files/Mozilla Firefox, Portable Ed./Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition 49.0.2/

Firefox 48.0.2: https://sourceforge.net/projects/portableapps/files/Mozilla Firefox, Portable Ed./Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition 48.0.2/

Firefox 47.0.1: https://sourceforge.net/projects/portableapps/files/Mozilla Firefox, Portable Ed./Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition 47.0.1/

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What I found by viewing the source in Outlook 2010 is

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What I found by viewing the source in Outlook 2010 is

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What I found by viewing the source in Outlook 2010 is

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What I found by viewing the source in Outlook 2010 is

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What I found by viewing the source in Outlook 2010 is

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It is not letting me post my entire message.

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What I found by viewing the source in Outlook 2010 is img src="data:image/png; This was the only line that had "img". Unfortunately, this tells me nothing, but I hope it will help you. We did not start having issues until version 50.0.1, so I am assuming something major changed between version 49 and 50. Also we are using Exchange 2013, but most of our users have outlook 2010. Several users do not have Outlook installed, and they use OWA exclusively. The biggest reason we use Firefox with OWA is because users need to see a visual notification pop up when they receive a new email message even when Firefox is minimized. These users take calls from patients, but they also need to respond to emails as soon as they arrive. We are using an extension called "Outlook Web App ( + Reminders)" which provides this functionality w/o any special configuration. I have not been able to find anything for Chrome that does this. At least not w/o configurations that I have not be able to get working. The work around right now is to have both Chrome and Firefox open to their OWA email accounts. As long as Firefox is open they receive their notifications, but they have to use Chrome to actually send emails that need to have screenshots embedded into the message. I double checked again this morning and when I have dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled;false I can paste the screenshot into a new message, but the recipient does not receive it. If the setting is dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled;true I cannot paste a screenshot into the message at all. Thanks again for your help...

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Sorry, about so many posts. I had a "<" before img and I guess anything after that does not post.

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Chosen Solution

rwoodwar said

What I found by viewing the source in Outlook 2010 is img src="data:image/png; This was the only line that had "img".

Well, there's the problem. A "data URI" is an encoded version of an image, but Outlook 2010 apparently doesn't display them (in Outlook 2007+, Word is the HTML renderer rather than IE, and it either disables or lacks support for numerous conventional HTML features, depending how how you look at it). See: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6070196/what-is-data-uri-support-like-in-major-email-client-software

If you view source in a message sent from OWA in Chrome, it probably has the more conventional cid: URL for the img rather than a data: URL.

I double checked again this morning and when I have dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled;false I can paste the screenshot into a new message, but the recipient does not receive it. If the setting is dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled;true I cannot paste a screenshot into the message at all.

Upon further reflection, I think that means that when the page's scripts are allowed to intercept the paste, they don't handle it properly and you end up with nothing, and when you block the scripts from intercepting the paste, they behave more like you dragged/dropped an attachment on the message. Except now in Firefox 50 the attachment is somehow getting converted to a data URI. ??

I'm assuming an Exchange upgrade isn't a short-term possibility...

Someone else using OWA 2013 perhaps could develop a workaround: for example, a script could be injected into the page which hides the new JavaScript objects/functions from the page so that it will fall back on older code.

For now, you might consider (1) switching your users to the Extended Support Release version of Firefox 45 and (2) filing a bug about this to see if a solution can be developed before the next ESR release in the Spring.

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Thanks for your help. I may look into the long term options you mentioned or just keep doing what we are doing.