That little Red-X

 

I had hoped that this article would provide a platform for learning a bit about HTML (The Hypertext Markup Language) and MIME (The Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions), as we looked inside an e-mail message or an internet page to see what caused the Red-X. But when I reached a thousand words and I wasn’t half way done, I decided to only summarize what I was going to say and present a lot of statements without proof. I hope it works.

 

Summary and Conclusions

 

  1. The Red-X is a place holder for images on HTML pages. (HTML is the language used to write Web pages and e-mail messages that contain other than plain text.)
  2. Usually, seeing a Red-X is not your fault. It is the sender’s fault or the page author’s fault.
  3. There are so many ways to get the Red-X on Web pages that it is a wonder if you don’t see them often.
  4. The only way to see the image represented by the Red-X is for the sender or author to fix the message or the Web page.
  5. An exception to No. 4 is that Security settings in Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, and other security packages can prevent the required down-load of the image file resulting in more Red-X boxes.
  6. The number of Red-X’s that you see and the number that you cause can be reduced by:
    1. Outlook Express, In-Box, Tools, Options, Security(tab) : Check box “Internet Zone”, Un-check the box “Do not allow Attachments…”, Un-check the box “Block Images and other…”
    2. Send(tab) : Under Mail Sending Format Check HTML, Click HTML settings, Check “Send Pictures with messages.”
    3. Don’t Copy and Paste messages with embedded pictures. Forward them instead.
    4. Keep Internet Security level at Medium. (IE, Tools, Options, Click Internet, set to default level.) This includes other security programs as well.

 

In short, there is really little that you (the receiver of the email with the Red-X box) can do to get the picture that should be where the Red-X is. The fault most likely lies with either the originator of the forwarded email or the person who sent it to you (the settings on their computers).

 

Now, if you want to know the technical aspects of the whys and wherefores of the “Red-X Syndrome”, read on.

 

General- The Red-X is provided by HTML as a placeholder for images that have not yet been downloaded by an HTML page. If the author of the page wants to, he can also specify a box that will outline where the image will be, and a text message describing the image. The Red-X will then be placed in the upper left corner of the box. So, whenever a Red-X is showing it means that an image has not yet been downloaded. This is true for all Web pages and also for e-mail messages that contain images (HTML pages).

 

E-mail- To see an e-mail message the way it is received by your computer, open Outlook Express and right click on an e-mail message, preferably a short one with a small picture included in the text. Then Select Properties. The properties page that opens is not very interesting, so after perusing it briefly, click on the Details tab.

 

Now we are getting to the heart of things. The view here is the “Header” of the message. It shows every place that the message has been on its way from the sender to you. Unless you have some interest in where the message has been or when it was there, this particular information is not very exciting either. Now click on “Message Source” at the lower right of the window. Expand the window by dragging its edges. Note that the header information is repeated at the top of this window in a bold font. We have already seen that, so let’s scroll down to the end of the header, which can be recognized by a line of normal font saying, “This is a multi-part message in MIME format.” MIME is the standard used to transmit the various kinds of data that we get in our mail, such as, Plain Text, HTML, Images like JPEG and GIF, and Music.

 

As you scroll down through the message you will see the various parts of the “multi-part” message in bold type. The first part is a bit of housekeeping done by MIME, Content-Type: multipart/alternative. A few lines below this is Content-Type: text/plain. In this part the message is shown in plain text, with all graphics, color, and special formatting removed. This is the part that will be displayed if the user selects “Read all messages in plain text” in the Options of Outlook Express.

 

After the text/plain part, continue scrolling to Content-Type: text/html. Here is where the HTML (source) page is shown. This is the code that makes the message look the way we see it. If you are not familiar with HTML don’t expect to understand much in this section. However, look for portions of lines that have this form: src=3D"cid:006a01c5f9d1$24cca680$0100007f@jean".  If you find one or more, they are references to images within the message. The cid designation means Content ID, and it is the id number of the image in the message.

 

Scroll down some more and you should come to:

Content-Type: image/jpeg;

            name="Some Name.jpg"

Content-Transfer-Encoding:

Content-ID: <006a01c5f9d1$24cca680$0100007f@jean>

Note that the Content-ID is the same as the cid in the HTML part. So, when the image needs to be displayed, OE finds it here, right below its cid. Scrolling further will reveal the image values in a manner that only a machine can understand. Each image will have a cid, name, type, encoding, and the data, so that the program will know how to reconstruct it. This is the only place the image data exists.

 

Forwarding a message – When a message is forwarded, a new header is initiated and everything that we have been looking at is sent to the recipient. He gets the images because they are part of the message that is being forwarded.

 

Copy and Paste a message – When we view an open message in OE, we are looking at the result of performing all of the operations called for by the code we saw in the text/html part of the message. This includes displaying the pictures from the image/jpeg part of the message. When we Copy this page, the HTML page gets put in the Clipboard, including the picture references. Therefore, if we now Paste this HTML page into a message that we are composing, the pictures will not be visible to the recipient of the message. Also, they may or may not be visible to us. For instance, if we leave the original message open at the time we Paste (the usual case), we will see the pictures in the message we are composing. Don’t be fooled; the recipient will not see them. If we close the original message before we Paste, then we will also see Red-X’s instead of pictures. Remember, the picture references point to places in the original message that is in our computer, and are only available when that message is open.

 

Internet Explorer- According to Microsoft’s Knowledge Base Article 283807, some of the reasons that IE responds with a Red-X (rather than an image) are:  

 

  1. The Web page includes an image type that is not supported by Internet Explorer.
  2.  The Show Pictures check box is not selected on the Advanced tab of the Internet Options dialog box on the recipient’s computer. 
  3. The image is displayed based on a script, ActiveX control, cookie, Java applet, or HTTP referral information, and your computer or network is configured to block one or more of these features. For example, you may have Internet Explorer or Symantec Corporation's Norton Internet Security (NIS) or Norton Personal Firewall (NPF) 2002 configured to block one or more of these features.

 

An easy way to see any MS KB article is to just enter the number into the search window of Google. Try it with 283807 and get the full scoop on the Red-X as it applies to Internet Explorer.

 

73

Dick Carricato   772-546-7790

d_carricato@bellsouth.net