KB196422076: Automation Engine - Send E-mail task: At receiving end, the attachments are changed to .dat files

Summary

The Send E-mail task attachments at the receiver are modified to extension .dat and cannot be opened.

Symptoms

The Send E-mail task attachments at the are receiver modified to extension .dat and cannot be opened.

Solution

Problem is caused by the E-mail client which is using an old standard format of E-mail messages namely, RFC2047. As a result, the attachment is decoded to an unreadable file.

Workaround

Follow one the below mentioned methods:

• preferred way set in the E-mail message field: 

  #set ($AttachmentsCharSet="utf-8")

  
  

• Update the E-mail client to a newer version that is using RFC2231 to decode. Outlook 2010 supports RFC2231-encoded attachment file names.
  
  
• Modify file name by removing/replacing special characters in the file name with a SmartName and limit the number of characters to 55. 
  
  
• Zip the attachment and then rename the zip file to a short file name without special characters.