Broken Squirrelmail when reading ISO8859-1 codes after 56.0.9?

[David Rust]

My provider is balking at investigating why Squirrelmail is barfing on ISO8859 encodings. The symptoms I see are:

• Missing/Truncated Sender names (ie, "Unknown User")
• Missing/Truncated Subject Lines (ie, "no subject")
• Missing/Truncated Body

In my case, I receive daily about a gigabyte of email from spanish speaking users and what I see are mail messages that exhibit the above depending on the actual subject matter.
For example, in the image, the first line contains "ciones de beneficiencia" as its subject. In this case, it was a subject that had accented characters that said "Descontinuación de monedas de $5 y $10: condiciones de beneficiencia"
The third line shows an unknown sender and a subject line "ENSA JUEVES 28 DE ABRIL DE 2016". From the actual header, the user's name is "Gonzalo Guttierez Muñoz" and a subject line as "Enviando por correo electrónico: REITERACION PAUTA DE PRENSA JUEVES 28 ABRIL DE 2016"
I have also seen mail messages with truncated bodies, but I assumed at first it was the result of sender error, which it wasn't. Of course, the HTML was safe by its attachment boundaries, so when that gets loaded, it shows the proper text.
Apparently UTF-8 entities don't cause SQM to barf, only the ISO8859-1 ones.
HORDE shows these entries correctly. My tech support is useless, and I am a lowly user, so I can't go any further than this in my forensics. Squirrelmail hasn't had an update since 2013.

I can only assume that Cpanel is responsible.

 

[cPanelMichael]

Hello,

Your options for adjusting the SquirrelMail configuration are limited without root access to the server. Have you considered disabling SquirrelMail and using an alternate webmail application? For instance, you could use Roundcube or Horde, or install any webmail application directly to your website.

Thank you.

 

[David Rust]

I appreciate your reply, however I believe there is nothing wrong with the install of SQM as the support team denies they have touched it. You will also notice that I am addressing a cPanel forum, not a Squirrelmail forum. I have implemented a short term solution that takes the mail off that particular server and reads it elsewhere. I have no issues sending mail because it simply isn't required. What I do believe is that there is something that has changed on the server that doesn't occur to the support team because of their laziness or inability to see beyond their knee-jerk response that blames SQM for some defect.

This defect affects not just the name-space and subject-space of email messages, it is also affecting the body.

Here is the body of an email I received recently, viewed using SQM:

nombre de dominio

Para evitar atrasos e inconvenientes, se le sugiere cancelar desde este

example.cl/cgi-bin/dom-CL?q=login

Para evitar problemas que puedan afectar el normal

en la base de datos de NIC Chile y actualizarla en caso de ser necesario,

en los dominios que tuviere inscritos a su nombre, a objeto de evitar
errores en este proceso.

--- END ---
Here is the real body via GMAIL:

Informamos a usted que se ha iniciado el proceso de renovación de su
nombre de dominio

example.cl/, con fecha de renovación 07/07/2016.

Para evitar atrasos e inconvenientes, se le sugiere cancelar desde este
mismo momento usando tarjeta de crédito y el sistema seguro de Webpay,
en la dirección
example.cl/cgi-bin/dom-CL?q=login

En esta misma dirección, en el momento del pago, usted podrá optar
por renovar su nombre de dominio a más de 2 años, y hasta un máximo
de 10, según la tabla de tarifas indicada.

Para evitar problemas que puedan afectar el normal
funcionamiento del dominio, rogamos revisar la información almacenada
en la base de datos de NIC Chile y actualizarla en caso de ser necesario,
puesto que el no pago de la renovación es causal de eliminación.

Solicitamos a usted chequear que sus datos de facturación sigan al día
en los dominios que tuviere inscritos a su nombre, a objeto de evitar
errores en este proceso.

La factura que se generará tendrá los siguientes datos:

---END---

Notice that viewing the message through GMAIL reveals a whole lot missing through the SQM version, each missing part with some ISO8859-1 encoding it it. I have checked the file on the server. It contains the correct body.

The support team claims no changes in the SQM installation on the server.

The only thing that has changed is an update to cPanel 56.0.9 -- [edit] excuse me, 56.0.14 -- so where would you point the finger?

 

[cPanelMichael]

Hello,

Internal case CPANEL-4373 is open to address an issue where some Squirrelmail encoding breaks on certain systems. I'll update this thread with more information as it becomes available, however, please ask your provider to submit a case or ticket with us directly if possible, so we can take a closer look at the affected system and ensure it is in-fact related to this case.

Thank you.