I am experiencing a problem with an Italian certified email (PEC) message in K-9 Mail 23.1.
The PEC message appears to contain four elements:
an .eml file containing the original email/message;
an .xml file;
a PDF attachment;
a digital signature.
However, K-9 Mail displays only two attachments: the .eml file and the .xml file.
The actual text/body of the email contained in the .eml file is not displayed, and the PDF attachment is not available for viewing or downloading from the original message.
I also tried forwarding the message from K-9 Mail. In the forwarded message, the PDF is included as an attachment and can be downloaded. However, the email body is still not displayed, and the digital signature is not included in the forwarded message.
The PEC is displayed correctly only when accessed through the original webmail, Roundcube Webmail 1.7.4. There I can read the email body and access the PDF and the other components correctly.
Update: I also tested the same PEC message with Thunderbird for Android 23.1. As Thunderbird for Android is based on the K-9 Mail codebase, it shows the same behavior: the email body is not displayed correctly and the PDF attachment cannot be accessed as expected.
In contrast, FairEmail (F-Droid) handles exactly the same PEC message correctly: the email body is displayed and the PDF attachment is available.
This seems particularly relevant because the issue is reproducible in both K-9 Mail and its Thunderbird Android successor, while another Android mail client, FairEmail, handles the same PEC message correctly.
Thanks for the clarification and for pointing me to the Mozilla Connect request.
Just to clarify, I am not using K-9 with a PEC mailbox. My account is a regular, non-PEC email account that receives a message from an Italian PEC mailbox.
I understand that K-9 does not currently support viewing attached .eml files, which explains why the email body inside postacert.eml is not displayed.
However, in an Italian PEC, postacert.eml is part of the PEC structure and contains the original email and its attachments. The PDF is inside it, but K-9 does not show or allow me to download it. Interestingly, if I forward the message from K-9, the PDF becomes available as an attachment.
Roundcube and FairEmail display both the email body and the PDF correctly.
So, is the missing PDF also a consequence of the lack of .eml support, or is this a separate issue with attachments inside an .eml?
It seems reasonable to say this is the cause where the PDF is attached within the .eml file, which TB cannot open. I don’t have experience with PEC emails so this just logical reasoning rather than any direct knowledge.
Are you viewing the forwarded email in K9 or a different client and see the PDF attachment?
I’m forwarding the message from K-9 to a different, regular webmail account. That webmail handles Italian PEC messages correctly, and when I open the forwarded message there, the PDF is available as a normal attachment.
As I mentioned in my original post:
However, K-9 Mail displays only two attachments: the .eml file and the .xml file.
The actual text/body of the email contained in the .eml file is not displayed, and the PDF attachment is not available for viewing or downloading from the original message.
I also tried forwarding the message from K-9 Mail. In the forwarded message, the PDF is included as an attachment and can be downloaded. However, the email body is still not displayed, and the digital signature is not included in the forwarded message.
So yes, the forwarded message I’m referring to is being viewed in a different webmail client, not in K-9.
The important point is that K-9 does not make the PDF available at all when viewing the original message. The fact that the PDF becomes available after forwarding it to another webmail is a separate part of the problem.
Update: I did another test, and this seems to clarify the issue.
I forwarded the PEC from K-9 using “forward as attachment” to a regular webmail account. The PEC arrives with its components as separate attachments. I downloaded them all.
I opened the subject-email.eml file with Thunderbird Desktop on Linux, and the email body is displayed correctly. The PDF can be downloaded separately from the attachments.
This makes me think the issue is specifically how K-9 handles/displays the nested .eml message inside an Italian PEC, both when displaying it and when forwarding it.
Interestingly, when K-9 forwards the PEC as an attachment, another mail client can extract the .eml message and display the email body correctly, while the PDF is available as a separate attachment.