Encryption Management Server Web Email Protection log contains "Domain contains illegal character"

Products

• Gateway Email Encryption
• Encryption Management Server

Issue/Introduction

The following Information level entries are seen in the Web Email Protection log of Encryption Management Server, where [email protected] is the email address of a Web Email Protection user:

Could not parse address ["[email protected]" <'[email protected]'>]: Domain contains illegal character

Environment

Symantec Encryption Management Server release 3.4.2 and above.

Cause

When the internal user entered the recipient's email address into the To: field of the Outlook message, they enclosed the email address in single quotation marks. For example:

'[email protected]'

Outlook immediately converts this to:

'[email protected]' <'[email protected]'>

In the Encryption Management Server Mail log, the email address of the outgoing message is displayed without quotation marks. For example:

recipient 1/1 ([email protected]): [Bcc] sending Web Messenger message

When the Web Email Protection user opens the message, the email address in the To: field is enclosed within single quotation marks. For example:

"[email protected]" <'[email protected]'>

When the Web Email Protection user clicks on the Reply button to reply to the message, it generates two of the Domain contains illegal character entries in the Web Email Protection log and when the user clicks on the Send button it generates a third entry.

 

Resolution

Although the Web Email Protection log contains a total of three Domain contains illegal character entries for each message that a Web Email Protection user replies to, the reply does get sent. The log entry is accurately logged as an Information level entry. Therefore it can be ignored.

To avoid seeing these entries in the log, ensure that Outlook users do not enclose recipient email addresses in single quotation marks or create contact records with the email address in single quotation marks. Also ensure that Microsoft Exchange contacts are not created with single quotation marks around their email addresses.

Additional Information

EPG-22639