Why can't I view attachments to Emails?

[seeburt]

Re: Cannot View Attachments to Emails

I feel your frustration! No one takes ownership! All these tweeks/updates come out to an app and the next thing you know it has your information trapped or will no longer work. I told Verizon about this issue and they looked at me like I was an *****! Luckily for me it works on GM like you posted. Good Luck!

 

[abdpac]

I have the same problem with my brand new S6. No one has been able to help me thus far. They all think I am a moron. Can't open any attachment whatsoever (picture, word doc, pdf). Have you found anyone who could help?

 

[peter1986]

No nothing. I called samsung again, made them log on my phone and they couldn't find the problem. They told me to call Outlook and see what happened. This is so frustrating, I receive a lot of attachment and need to be able to open it but i can't anymore. I don't understand how it just happened all of a sudden like that. I didn't do anything.

 

[HeathC42]

Wondering if you have found any solutions to this problem? I am trying to help someone troubleshoot their phone which is behaving the same way. Every PDF that he tries to open downloaded from email gives him the error "file read error. the file type is unsupported". I sent him a test PDF attachment that I know for a fact is valid and opens just fine on my Note 4, so the issue is definitely on his end.

He is using the Hancom Office Viewer to try to open PDFs. JPEGs also do no open if they are sent as attachments. Very frustrating

Same files open just fine if done on a PC.

Thanks in advance!

 

[tomatosouplabs]

I found this thread googling. I have problem which I posted about on moto x 2013 forum. I have an outlook.com account and in last few weeks I cannot download attachments using any client on phone running exchange activesync. This includes nine, Microsoft's own outlook, and AOSP email app.

They do however work on a brand newly created outlook address.

I can however download attachments with IMAP on any client I tried with the email address that has the problem with activesync.

I cleared cache and data and removed the account from all apps then started fresh and didn't help.

If you look at recent reviews of outlook app people are complaining about it, they may think it is just that app. Unless there's more than one problem.

I get files created with 0 length which is why they appear corrupt or invalid when opening.

Edit: and BTW I can download attachments fine using outlook 2013 on my PC using activesync.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[peter1986]

Re: Cannot View Attachments to Emails

I went to a Samsung repair office and they couldn't do anything. I left my phone for 2 hours and atayed another 2 hours for them to fix it and it didnt work out.
I tired other hotmail and one worked well. So, I realized that the hotmail that worked is POP and the ones I use most and havimg problem with are IMAP. But I only was able to see that on the settings on my macbook. Which doesn't really touch the setting on hotmail itself. Just the email app on my MacBook.

So I'm wondering how I could change the emails IMAP to be POP maybe that will work. It's soo annoying though

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[ntheodora95]

I am experiencing the same problem. I can't open my outlook (hotmail) attachments using my phone but using my laptop it works fine. These are the steps that I've taken:
-I thought the problem was the pdf/word reader so I tried downloading adobe reader for pdf files but it doesn't work
-I tried opening the attachments with my school email account and work email account and THEY WORK FINE (so the problem is the outlook itself, not the apps used to open the attachments or the Samsung's stock email app)
-I tried to open the attachments on outlook.com (using my laptop) and they can be opened (so specifically, the issue was my outlook on my phone only--I'm using Samsung Galaxy S6 running Android Lollipop 5.1.1 btw)
-I contacted Microsoft Answer Desk under "Outlook" category but all they said was they dealt with Office 365 and they couldn't handle Outlook in Android (what the heck)
-I tried clearing credentials and cache but still no result

By the way, I do not have a default reader (for word,pdf,etc.). When I open an attachment I'm still prompted to choose an application (for one-time use only or to be my default application), so deleting default apps won't work either.

My phone email server is eas.outlook.com/Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync and it connects to the server using secure connection (SSL), NOT using the client certificate.

Has anyone resolved this issue? Any ideas?

 

[peter1986]

Okay so ntheodora95 you are totally right about the outlook. It has nothing to do with any apps. It's really Outlook server etc. I have finally found a solution.

1- Remove/delete that email
2- Add it again but this time go on "Manual Setup" and not "Next"
3- Choose " IMAP ACCOUNT" , put your password
4- Press on "Next" until the email is installed. DO NOT CHANGE OR TOUCH ANYTHING OF "PORT NUMBERS" / SECURITY TYPE / IMAP SERVER. Just press next next.

Only down side is that the attachement takes a while to download but at least it opens afterward. Hope that helpss.

 

[tomatosouplabs]

I am experiencing the same problem. I can't open my outlook (hotmail) attachments using my phone but using my laptop it works fine. These are the steps that I've taken:
-I thought the problem was the pdf/word reader so I tried downloading adobe reader for pdf files but it doesn't work
-I tried opening the attachments with my school email account and work email account and THEY WORK FINE (so the problem is the outlook itself, not the apps used to open the attachments or the Samsung's stock email app)
-I tried to open the attachments on outlook.com (using my laptop) and they can be opened (so specifically, the issue was my outlook on my phone only--I'm using Samsung Galaxy S6 running Android Lollipop 5.1.1 btw)
-I contacted Microsoft Answer Desk under "Outlook" category but all they said was they dealt with Office 365 and they couldn't handle Outlook in Android (what the heck)
-I tried clearing credentials and cache but still no result

By the way, I do not have a default reader (for word,pdf,etc.). When I open an attachment I'm still prompted to choose an application (for one-time use only or to be my default application), so deleting default apps won't work either.

My phone email server is eas.outlook.com/Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync and it connects to the server using secure connection (SSL), NOT using the client certificate.

Has anyone resolved this issue? Any ideas?

Use app like es file explorer and you should see it creates 0 length files. Try switching to stock email app or something like k9 and set up for IMAP and SMTP. Set the server names and ports accordingly. You can get the info from outlook.com help or I can post it later. I was not able to get IMAP push working well with k9, it put CPU in some continuous battery drain mode and hung up, so I went to polling mode but then just decided to go back to the stock email app. When setting up account do not pick the exchange service.

So now I deal with 5 minute polling and sometimes my email doesn't get marked as read after I read it and have to read it again to clear it. And no contacts sync. I don't use outlook calendar. But attachments can be downloaded and uploaded.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[tomatosouplabs]

Only down side is that the attachement takes a while to download but at least it opens afterward. Hope that helpss.

Yeah you're right, downloading attachments is slower. I wonder why, maybe activesync does compression?

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Thong Keokham]

Okay so ntheodora95 you are totally right about the outlook. It has nothing to do with any apps. It's really Outlook server etc. I have finally found a solution.

1- Remove that email
2- Add it again but this time go on "Manual Setup" and not "Next"
3- Choose " IMAP ACCOUNT" , put your password
4- Press on "Next" until the email is installed. DO NOT CHANGE OR TOUCH ANYTHING OF "PORT NUMBERS" / SECURITY TYPE / IMAP SERVER. Just press next next.

Only down side is that the attachement takes a while to download but at least it opens afterward. Hope that helpss.

Thank you!! Was so frustrating!! Did what u suggested and it did exactly what u said! I'm happy again. Thanks again for the fix.

 

[peter1986]

Re: Cannot View Attachments to Emails

Your welcome . I actually just played around until it worked. Samsung should've known how to do this. Anyz hopefully we'll be able to open the attachment faster if they help.

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[normawood]

Re: Cannot View Attachments to Emails

Hi Peter, could you please help clarify? When you say remove the email, do you mean I should delete that particular email message or the entire account? Also, how do I get into manual setup?

 

[normawood]

Nevermind. I just figured it out. Yay! Thank you. Once going into Email, I hit that three-lined icon. Then, I chose MANAGE ACCOUNTS at the bottom of the screen and deleted my hotmail account. Then, when I hit "+" to add an account, it asked me to choose an account, I chose "Others" instead of "Outlook.com"; otherwise, "MANUAL SETUP" (that you mentioned above) was not an option. After that, I followed your awesome directions above, and now I'm downloading again. Thanks again. I would never have figured this out without reading your instructions.

 

[Simin Fahim]

Since last week I can not open any Attachment or pdf !!! I already cleaned the cache and reboot my phone . No luck.
What should I do?? Thanks.

 

[ironass]

I have been following this thread with interest. I do not usually use the stock Samsung email app, preferring to use the excellent Type Mail, free from the Play Store, instead.

Intrigued, I enabled the stock Samsung email app for the G900F and set it up with my outlook.com account. My stock Samsung email version is 5.0.0.0200.

Using my PC on Windows 10, (November update), I then attached a .pdf file to my outlook email and sent it to the same outlook.com email address. The email arrived on my phone and I opened it and selected Download.

The .PDF file downloaded to... /storage/emulated/0/download

Using my file manager I navigated to the location and successfully opened the .pdf file with Adobe Acrobat Reader. I also found the .pdf document by opening Adobe Acrobat Reader from the app drawer. I also found and opened the same file using Polaris Office.

Therefore I am wondering if other users...

1. Are using an older stock Samsung email app than version 5.0.0.0200.

2. Are using the stock Samsung email app and not, say, a carrier branded version.

3. Using some sort of anti virus or malware app that is preventing downloading or deleting the content.

These are just speculations. As I said, this was only an experiment on my part. If this does not work for you then give Type Mail a try.

 

[ross68]

I noticed that you are having a problem with opening email attachments. A week or so ago, this same problem came up with me, even though up to that time, I had no problem opening email attachments.

I have a nexus 4 smartphone and I was using the new forced on me Outlook App with a hotmail address. I had the Adobe app and the Google Sheets app so there was no reason that I no longer could open email attachments, however I continued to get the Download failure message. After messing around with my phone, I found others on the web had the same problem. I also noticed that if I forwarded the same emails to my gmail account there was no problem in opening the attachments from gmail. So I tried another email app for my hotmail accounts and now I can open my attachments and even save them to my phone if I wish. I settled with BlueMail after trying K-Mail and a few others. I have 2 hotmail accounts and I am now able to look at them both from the same BlueMail access and I can also combine the two together if I wish as BlueMail supports many email accounts and providers as you will see when you download the App. I hope this helps.

Ross68

 

[andy-f]

peter....well done you. it worked for me perfectly , and its not that slow. its driven me nuts, and most annoyingly I restored to factory settings and didn't need to. anyway..thanks again....man hug lol

 

[seeburt]

It's really been frustrating that there hasn't been a fix for this after all this time! I personally have had a lot of problems with this phone (I'm on my 5th Samsung S6 since February! I think Clark Howard had it right when he said (I paraphrase): "When Mr. Customer-no-Service comes knocking at your door too often, it's time to move on..." I'm moving on at the end of this contract!

 

[peter1986]

Well I'm glad I was able to help all of you guys and girls .

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