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Archiver > Listowners > 1997-12 > 0881386061


From: "George W. Durman" <>
Subject: Re: AOL Problems
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 1997 00:27:41 -0500


At 11:27 12/05/97 -0700, C Hammett wrote:
>I had thought the same re length of Digests, but some time back lowered the
>max bytes of the Combs-D to 20k (any email over 20k and AOL automatically
>converts it to a text file attachment) and it made no difference at all.

Having read many posts lately about problems at AOL with Digests from
RootsWeb, something finally dawned on me. Many users say they have
absolutely no problems with Digests, while others have nothing but trouble.

I think I have discovered the reason for this disparity.

If a user reads his/her email ON-LINE at AOL, he/she will have to put up with
those annoying and often fragmented "attachment" files that AOL makes from
a Digest message.

On the other hand, those who use "Flash Sessions", or whatever it is called
now, to download their email directly to their own computer, THEN read them,
have no problems with the Digests, because they are downloaded in ONE
complete MIME message, not in fragmented "attachments".

Does this make sense to anyone? I just couldn't understand why some users
"always" have problems and others "never" have problems. There had to be
a reason.

I know that when I was still using AOL I never read my email online. I always
used Flash Sessions to download it, then would read it, reply, and use a
Flash Session to upload my replies and get any new mail. By doing this I
never had any problems with any messages, including Digests or extremely
large messages.

Maybe we should advise our users to ALWAYS use the offline method of
reading and replying and thus avoid the Digest "attachment" problems.

What do you think?

SgtGeorge
Listowner at RootsWeb

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