Jan 25 2008
Gmail ‘Noname’ Attachment Bug
Every time my brother sends a message with an attachment to my Gmail account, the attachment comes across as ‘noname’ and can’t be opened. This has gone on for literally months — maybe years. I’ve written to the GMail team more than once asking, “When are you guys going to get this fixed?” No response. The post on their support site says “This is a known issue, and our engineers are working to resolve it as quickly as possible.” Yeah, right: that post was last updated in May, 2007. Not sure that qualifies as “as quickly as possible,” guys.
So today I’m noodling around in Gmail and see a link to the Official Gmail Blog with some helpful information. I click and read. Good stuff. Then my eye spies a Search box in the upper-right-hand corner (”Powered by Google!” it crows). “Aha!” I think to myself, “Maybe this site has a clue as to what’s up with the ‘noname’ bug!” I enter my search term — “noname” — and click the Search button.
Nothing happens. No hits.
I try again. (You know: “Maybe I didn’t click the button,” or “Maybe my eyes missed something.”)
Nothing. The page doesn’t change.
I try a different search term, “forward.” A raft of returned search results display.
I try another search term, “archive.” Bingo — lots of hits.
I try “noname” again, and the page reverts to the original “no hits” view. At first I thought there must be some conspiracy afoot — some evil little piece of code lurking in the background, waiting for someone like me to search for “noname” so that it could taunt me with nothingness — and then I searched for “gleaming aspic” and got bupkis with that, too. So my conspiracy theory was shot.
Still… what’s going on, Gmail? And what about you other Gmail users out there? I’m having a hard time believing no one else but me on the planet is having trouble with this same thing. I run into this problem on nearly a daily basis. How can it be that it’s taking your team so long to fix this problem?
Other features are great. I love them. More space is wonderful. I’ll use it. But don’t you think you should first fix existing problems before rolling out enhancements?
C’mon, Gmail team. I mean… c’mon already!
11 responses so far
http://www.jquery.info/noname/
or
http://drobertadams.blogspot.com/2007_12_01_archive.html
Hope that helps.
Yeah, it helps… so thanks for the post. But it’s still a hassle.
One of the above sites mentions that this happens when a user sends the attachment from a Mac. Maybe, but my brother hasn’t ever been within 400 yards of a Mac.
Yeah, I can’t believe this. I mean if it’s simply a matter of running a little script, why can’t they incorporate that into gmail? Pathetic, everything my boss sends me gets corrupted.
I’m having the same problem… but not with my old PC running XP… My new computer runs xp as well and all of a sudden I’m having this problem when sending attachments from my Palm phone.
I too just started having this problem with emails received from my Dad, it may be coincidence, but he also just changed his ISP and email address from Comcast to Embarq. I never saw this problem from his previous email address and I am not seeing it from anyone else’s emails.
GMail needs to get with it and get a fix out there for this. What an annoyance!
I have exactly the same problem, I would say sporadically in the past, but now recurring.
Like everyone else, I’m amazed that Google/GMAIL haven’t resolved.
I certainly don’t like the idea of sending professional files to another website to have them rendered legible.
Can’t we get a campaign going….
I too have exactly the same problem and it;s been there for a couple of years - it’s literally gobsmacking that a company with the technology and resources that Google has, have allowed this to continue for so long but then their support is non existent - I’ve never had a reply when I’ve contacted them - guess it’s because it’s free but I honestly couldn’t recommend the product to anyone even though I soldier on with it myself - mainly cos all my emails are in there!
I am having the same problem; it is frustrating; I have to keep a yahoo address just to handle this issue; It has been a LONG time; so maybe they don’t really care about their gmail customers once an account has been opened…Senders think it is something wrong with what I am doing, they can’t believe its google!!!!
Here’s another workaround for the noname attachment problem:
1) On the Mac sender side: Duplicate the file and rename it with a .jpg extension.
2) Send it on over.
3) Download the file from gmail onto your desktop and rename it back to its proper file extension. In my case, .doc.
— J
If you’re sending from a Mac to Gmail it is best to only use numbers and letters in the email and make sure the Windows Friendly box is checked. (You don’t get this option if you drag and drop.) You should also not put any spaces in a file name, use “_” instead. Remember no quotes!
-Frank
Thanks, Frank, for your input. It may be that your suggestion provides a workaround for the time being, but it’s frustrating to me that a process as simple as this requires casting runes and dark magic, y’know? Good programming meets people where they are. It doesn’t ask them to make fundamental changes to accommodate an environment’s eccentricities. It’s unfeasible to expect that people will “check the rulebook” before doing something as simple as sending an email message. People are going to behave as people do: unpredictably. A sound process is one that attempts to make allowances and adapt accordingly.
Now it’s only fair for me to admit that it’s been literally months since I last ran into the problem. I successfully receive email attachments from my brother all the time now without a hitch. So maybe the problem’s solved…?