Unable to get attachments from forwarded message

[NickG92]

Environment

• PHP version: 8.3
• ImapEngine version: 1.13
• IMAP server: self hosted

I cannot get the attachments from an e-mail message that is forwarded. The attachmentCount() method returns 1 while there are more as it only sees the .eml file. Using an e-mailclient such as Thunderbird you can see the attachments from the forwarded message.

The .eml file also returns null when using the [...]->filename() method which makes debugging alot harder aswel.

[stevebauman]

Hi @NickG92, is this happening with emails you're retrieving from your IMAP server, or are you parsing an mbox file? Can you post your code?

[NickG92]

Hi @stevebauman,
Yes, it is from an IMAP server.

Part of the code:

if ($message->hasAttachments()) {
      foreach ($message->attachments() as $attachment) {

          if ( ! $attachment->filename()) {
              continue;
          }     

          $contentId = $attachment->contentId();
          // Replace inline with local copy
          if ($contentId) {
              $search = "src=\"cid:$contentId\"";
              $replace = "src='".$url."'";
              $body = str_replace($search, $replace, $body);
          }

          try {
              Storage::disk('local')->put($path, $attachment->contents());
          } catch (\Exception $exception) {
              Log::error($exception);
          }
    }
}

For my own sanity I just tested this case sending myself an e-mail and forwarding that, no issue there. The attachment is stored and visible in the UI.

I have 2 cases where things aren't going as expected.

In the first case:
As per my code above I use the contentId() to check if the attachment is an inline attachment, in one case it is seeing the attachment(s) but the contentId() is not null for those attachments but they are also not inline.
The attachments are stored on the filesystem but because they are seen as inline they are not stored as a database entry but (tried to be) replaced in text as if they were inline but aren't. But because the content id strings aren't in the text nothing is replaced.
The images that are inline are replaced as expected though, just not the attached files (photo's in this case (jpg))

Is there a better way to determine if attachments (images) are inline? in 99,9% of the cases this has been working perfectly fine.

In the second case:
The message was forwarded from another e-mailaddress and contains ForwardedMessage.eml and the attachment (Excel file). When doing dd($message->attachmentCount()); it is returning: 1.

foreach($message->attachments() as $attachment) {
    var_dump($attachment->filename());
}

is returning NULL.
Here the Excel file is missing.

[stevebauman]

Thanks for the additional info @NickG92,

Can you attach the raw email contents here (with sensitive details omitted) so that I may debug this?

This may be an issue with the parsing library ImapEngine is using.

[NickG92]

Sure, preferably via a non-public channel such as a direct message but if you want it directly in here I can do that. As I do not understand this very well is the base64 encoded string after

------=_NextPart_001_0341_01DBC648.2524B830
Content-Type: image/png;
	name="image001.png"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-ID: <image001.png@01DBC4E6.9FAF0050>

the actual file and do I remove that aswel? There's sensitive information in the attachment.

[stevebauman]

You can send me an export of the email if you like at steven_bauman@outlook.com. I'll need the whole email to assist in debugging this. It may be a bug in https://github.com/zbateson/mail-mime-parser, but we'll see 👍

[stevebauman]

Ok this has been fixed in v1.13.5.

Run composer update and you're all set 👍