[Solved] Can't open .docx files sent via email

[clmaack]

I'm using Apache Open Office 4.1.7 on Windows 10. When receiving an email with an attached document, the document will not open; OpenOffice displays this message: C:\users\username\AppData\Local\Temp
January does not exist, where "January" is the first word of the file I'm trying to open. Having set Windows Explorer to show hidden files I see that the AppData\Local\Temp is there, but - of course - the file name that I'm trying to open is not. Why should it be? I'm trying to open it for the first time! This same thing happens with any .docx file from any sender that I try to open: it tells me that that file under AppData\Local\Temp does not exist, therefore it can do nothing. And I can do nothing except hit OK, even though it's definitely NOT OK!

Further information which may help: About two months ago we purchased a new computer. We downloaded the latest version of OpenOffice (which is the same version we had on our old computer). We had Windows 10 on the old machine, and Windows 10 on the new machine. At first everything worked fine, and opening downloaded files posed no problem. Then, for no reason we can figure out, it simply stopped working. We have no idea what we might have done to cause this, but we'd be happy to fix it if someone could tell us what to do.

Please help.

Thanks in advance!

[FJCC]

Can you open the file if you save it to your desktop or your Downloads folder?

[clmaack]

Yes! Just tried that (again!) and it worked this time.

In the process I discovered something else. If the file name has a space in it [January 12.docx] it breaks up that file name and says first that it can't find "\\AppData\Local\Temp\January", then it sends up another message saying that it can't find "\\AppData\Local\Temp\12.docx". However, if the file name is changed to remove that space [january12.docx], then it opens fine. This is definitely a new wrinkle, because I've been receiving and opening files with spaces in them for . . . well, for as long as I've been receiving files! What's the change?

Thanks in advance!

[John_Ha]

I don't think this is an AOO problem - I think things have changed with your email and it now has a bug where it does not handle files properly if they have spaces in their names.

Can you please answer these three questions below so we can diagnose whether it is a problem with the email provider, the email client, the browser or with AOO.

1. What email provider are you using? Is is gmail? yahoo? or what?

2. What email client are you using? Is it Thunderbird? Windows Mail? Outlook? or what?

3. Or are you not using a client but you are logging onto the email provider's website and accessing webmail through your browser? If so, which browser are you using? Firefox? Edge? Safari? Chrome?

Be very careful because when you open a file still attached to an email it opens in ...\AppData\Local\Temp which is a temporary files location. If you edit and save the file there it will be deleted when you close your email client. Always detach a file to your desktop before editing it.

[clmaack]

My email provider is AOL
Client - sorry, but I'm not quite sure what you mean, but it is not Thunderbird, Windows Mail, or Outlook
I log directly onto the AOL website with Firefox.

My wife and I have two other email accounts which we access through Firefox as well. Neither the Hotmail account or the Gmail have shown any signs of this problem.

Thank you again for your help. And thanks for the warning about trying to edit and save a file in Temp. While I've never done it, I didn't realize it would have been a problem.

[Zizi64]

Same problem in similar environment - webmail (Open in Browser) within Firefox Browserth webmail /AOO 4.1.7, Windows 10/:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=100814

[John_Ha]

Raise the problem with AOL Help Desk as it seems to be an AOL bug. I searched with aol attachment not downloading and got 274,000 hits.

It's not Firefox as I can manage attachments with spaces in their names on gmail. Also, it works for you on Hotmail and Gmail so it must be AOL!

[clmaack]

Hello

Thanks so much for helping me with my problem! Your recommendations were great. As suggested, I will discuss the issue with AOL.

[robleyd]

It would seem Firefox is stricter in its handling of filenames with spaces than other browsers - http://kb.mozillazine.org/Filenames_wit ... n_download. The primary issue seems to be that some websites do not properly enclose filenames in double quotes.

[John_Ha]

To confirm it down load and try these two test files. One has a space in the file name and the other does not.

TestCase.odt

File without space in name

(11.76 KiB) Downloaded 310 times

Test Case.odt

File with space in name

(11.76 KiB) Downloaded 309 times

[robleyd]

As I don't use Firefox, I can't help there Palemoon handles it nicely though and it opens with soffice when I choose Open With....

Edit: Of course, this would only show that this site properly handles - or not - quoting of file names

[Zizi64]

Both of John_Ha's the testfiles opens fine
with my Firefox 72.0.2 version,
on the recent version of my Hungarian Windows10 Prof x64,
with my LibreOffice 6.2.8.

I have not Apache OpenOffice installed permanently. I have only portable versions, and the file format is associated to the permanently installed LibreOffice.

Of course the documents (opened without downloading before) open as "read only", and the document opens (the LO starts) in an independent window, but not embedded inside the browser.

Edit: And I just tried it with AOO 4.1.6 portable version (because there is not AOO 4.1.7 portable yet), and it works too in same environment

[John_Ha]

See robleyed's post above at Re: [Solved] Can't open .docx files sent via email

If a file name on a website has a space (or non alpha-numeric character) in it then the web standards require that file name should be enclosed in quotes as "London Bridge.abc". Such a file works properly. The AOO web site includes quotes so all works OK.

However many web sites have incompetent programmers who ignore standards and do not enclose such file names in quotes. This is an error by the web site author. Such a file downloads OK but does not Open with ..., OK as only the characters up to the first space (or non alpha-numeric character) are recognised, so the file is thought to be called London and, of course, cannot be found.

The problem is not Firefox - it is incompetent web programmers who cannot or will not follow the agreed standards. What has probably happened is that the web page coding has recently been changed. Firefox has known of this problem for some years but does not want to make changes as it breaks the web rules and affects other things in Firefox, especially in other languages.

See Filenames with spaces are truncated upon download for a full explanation and for two extensions which can fix it - Content-Type Fixer and FixDisposition.