PGP Messages Cut Off or Blank

Products

• Symantec Products

Issue/Introduction

Under certain conditions Microsoft Outlook 2003 email messages, which have been signed or encrypted by PGP, may be partially cut off or blank. This article describes several easy workarounds which stop this problem from occurring.

 

Resolution

Under the following conditions Outlook 2003 HTML or RTF messages, which have been PGP-signed or -encrypted, may be partially cut off or blank:

 

• The Convert to plain text before using PGP option is selected in the PGP menu of the message.
• The message has been saved as a draft, manually by the sender or automatically by Outlook.

 

Essentially, any text added to a PGP-modified message body after a save may be cut off. If you have sent a cut off or blank message, please complete the instructions for one of the three workarounds below which resolve the issue. Workaround 1 is the easiest, because it simply requires disabling one PGP setting.

 

Workaround 1 - Do not convert to plain text

If a saved HTML or RTF message is not converted to plain text by PGP, then the message body will not be cut off or blank.

 

1. Open a new message in Outlook 2003.
2. Click the PGP menu, and make sure Convert to plain text before using PGP is not selected. Once this option is disabled, it will stay disabled.

 

Note: The next time you send a PGP-modified message, you may encounter a PGP warning recommending that you convert the message to plain text. If this occurs, check the box labeled Do not warn me anymore, then click Yes to send the message.

 

Workaround 2 - Manually save before sending

If you must convert HTML or RTF messages to plain text using PGP and you must periodically save messages, then performing a manual save immediately before sending each message will prevent the message body from being cut off or blank. This of course must be performed on a per-message basis.

 

Workaround 3 - Do not save messages as drafts

If you must convert HTML or RTF messages to plain text using PGP but you do not need to save messages before sending, you may disable Outlook's automatic message saving feature:

 

1. Click the Tools>Options>E-mail Options button.
2. Uncheck the box labeled Automatically save unsent messages.
3. Click OK twice to make the change take effect.

After completing any one of these three workarounds, PGP-signed and/or -encrypted messages will not be cut off or blank. If you are receiving blank messages from another PGP user, please refer them to this document and ask them to re-send their message(s) after applying one of the workarounds.

Proper decoding of HTML or RTF messages requires that Automatically decrypt/verify when opening messages be enabled on the Email tab of PGP Options.