Image included with forum reply not rendering when included in email notification

Whether you see placeholders for images or no images at all, depends on the browser you're using and it’s configured settings.

I checked into this and noticed that images are not missing in all email notifications.

Mail notifications with missing user avatar and site/group logo

These are notifications for new replies to forum posts, new comments to blog posts, etc.
I suspect that these notifications are sent by Zimbra/Telligent Job Service.
If you check the actual mail message in your mail client, you’ll notice that it only contains one block of mime-encoded (base64) content.
There are no mime-encoded images for the user’s avatar and site/group logo.
You can check this instantly in GMail: there is no paperclip icon to the right of the message’s subject.

mail notifications with inline mime-encoded user avatar and site/group logo

Mail notifications that do show the user’s avatar and the site/group logo, are probably not sent by Zimbra/Telligent Job Service.
In GMail, they have a paperclip icon to the right of the message subject.
I assume they are sent by the Zimbra Community application itself.
These are welcome mails to new users, invitations for joining a group, etc.
But also the Sent Preview Emails for testing template changes in the admin Control Panel.
You can easily test this yourself.
Enter the Control Panel and select Site Administation => Site Configuration => Manage Plugins.
Filter the plugins by selecting “Notifications” from the filter selection box.
Scroll down to “Forum Reply Notifications” and click button "Configure" to the right.
In the "Forum Reply Notifications" pop-up window, select tab “Templates”.
At the bottom of the window, click button “Send Preview Email”.
You will now receive a sample notification email with the group/site logo image shown.
This mail is sent to the email address in your Zimbra administrator account.
If you check the actual mail message, by selecting “Show original” in the message actions menu in GMail, you will see the group/site logo mime-encoded within the message itself.
This mime-encoded group/site logo starts with lines:

    ---=_ANM001_=-ad7877c43a83451b863573f6283216e1
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
    Content-ID: <sitelogo-image-250x88.png-150x42x2.png@yourdomain.com>
    Content-Type: image/png; name=sitelogo-image-250x88.png-150x42x2.png.png


I have checked numerous settings in the Control Panel and configuration files.
I could not find any setting that controls including of mime-encoded images in mail notifications.
Could this be a bug??

I can't comment on how to fix it. However, I will have someone follow up on this thread.

Is there any update on the status of this issue?

We haven’t heard anything since a week.

My point is that users see these mail notifications throughout their day.

And incessantly with a missing image in the header and a meaningless gray silhouette for the avatar.

It looks sloppy and gives a nonchalant impression.

Especially when you intended to present the user’s picture as the avatar.

Seeing someones picture in a mail notification makes the user experience so much more professional.


–-Razzamataz

Hi Razzamataz,

Have you made any edits to the default email templates? If so, can we get an export of that?
Can you attach or PM me the original email?
You can also check to confirm your CFS location is accessible and that your Job Scheduler has full access to that directory(ies).

I would like to add that the Avatar and Community logo show up fine for me (in our community environment). It is only when there is image included with the reply (or initial post I suppose). I receive email notifications via Outlook. When I click 'view source' the image referenced in the reply detail only has a few small differences (in how html is coded) from how the Logo and Avatar is coded as compared to the image.

For example..

Image
<p><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><a href="http://ourdomain/cfs-file/__key/communityserver-discussions-components-files/185/GL-Inquiry.jpg"><span style='text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=722 height=279 id="_x0000_i1027" src="cid:GL%20Inquiry.jpg-940x0.jpg@shelbyinc.com" alt=" "></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>

Avatar
<div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:blue'><a href="http://community.shelbysystems.com/members/ozella.bailey" title=""><span style='text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=70 height=70 id="_x0000_i1026" src="cid:image002.jpg@01CFDD52.412B5790"></span></a><span class=MsoHyperlink><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></div>

I don't know html, but the main difference to me that the image is not wrapped by <div></div>, or it has to do with missing inline class MsoNormal.

Most of our content is private, BUT, the trouble occurs even if I am signed in to the site.

Hi Steven,

I have not made any changes to the default email templates, or to the default theme set.

The only change I made is to the default Zimbra logo, that is displayed on every webpage in the top left.
Logged in as aministrator, I:
– selected "Edit Page" from the pop-out menu in the top right
– clicked the blue "Edit Header" icon in top
– clicked the Configure icon in the “Site – Banner” widget,
– selected the local stored image as the new logo by clicking button Browse in field Logo
– clicked blue button Save
– clicked "Save Header" in the pop-out menu in the top right
– clicked "Save Page" in the same menu
– selected option “Save as the new default version”
– selected option “Apply the new default to all Users.”
– clicked blue button "Save Page"
– confirmed my action in the white pop-up window

The CFS location is normally folder:

C:\inetpub\<Zimbra Community web folder>\file storage

isn’t?
I thought I had seen a configurable setting for this, but I can't recall where.
How can I check if the CFS location is indeed accessible?

The Application Pool identity running Zimbra Community (IIS APPLICATION POOL\ZimbraCommunity) has MODIFY permissions to this folder.
I added the user account running the Zimbra Job Service (ZimbraJobService) and gave it FULL permissions and restarted Zimbra Job Service.

By the way, I noticed that the behavior described by user Basilica above applies for me too.
The mail notification does not include mime-encoded (base64) segments for the user's avatar and sitelogo image.

--Razzamataz

Hi Steven,

I just noticed something.

I browsed to "community.zimbra.com" and looked at the page source in the browser, and checked the <img src> URL of the Zimbra logo displayed at the top of the page.

This is:

"/cfs-filesystemfile/__key/communityserver-components-imagefileviewer/widgetcontainerfiles-3fc3f82483d14ec485ef92e206116d49-s-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-header-header/logo.png_2D00_250x88.png"

When I browse to my website and check the <img src> URL, I get:

"/portal/cfs-filesystemfile/__key/communityserver-components-imagefileviewer/widgetcontainerfiles-3fc3f82483d14ec485ef92e206116d49-s-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-header-header/<logo-image-filename>.png"

See the problem here?

"portal" is the name of the Zimbra Community webapplication in IIS 7.5, running on Windows Server 2012 R2.

I installed Zimbra Community in a folder under the Default Website in IIS.

Could this break access to CFS filesystem?

 

--Razzamataz