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TrevJen
Asked: 2009-08-26 06:32:43 +0800 CST

SharePoint 2007 incoming mail with multiple attachments only partially successful

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I am using the incoming mail feature of SharePoint 2007 to catch mail from the drop folder and add it to a configured list. We have multiple systems that send automated reports to SharePoint every night, and for some reason it only handles some of the attachments.

For example, an automated email was sent to a SharePoint list with 23 attachments (before you ask, the total size of the combined attachments was less than 1 MB and I have removed all size restrictions from Exchange 2007). Out of the 23 reports, only about 5 were turned into a document item in the list.

The results of this are sporadic and unpredictable, but it always works for some of the attachments and usually not all of the attachments. The lists are configured not to overwrite existing copies of the reports, and I have noticed that SharePoint renames the files by placing a 4 digit number at the end of the name (since each day produces the same report titles).

I have been looking through logs for days and can't seem to come up with an explanation.

Update - I found the following in the Event Logs:

An error occurred while attempting to create an attachment for an item sent via e-mail. The e-mail was sent to the list "Reports", and the error was: Object reference not set to an instance of an object..

email exchange-2007 sharepoint sharepoint-2007 attachment

1 Answers

  1. I don't know if this will fix your problem, but I noticed in the latest August 2009 CU the following fix:

    You send a message to a document library. If the message has a long subject and its attachment has a long file name, the attachment is dropped. Then, you cannot find the attachment in the document library.

    While this isn't exactly your issue, it shows that Microsoft have been fixing bugs in this area and may have (intentionally or otherwise) fixed yours.

    I recommend that you:

    1. Set up a test environment such that you can reproduce the problem.
    2. Install WSS 3.0 / SharePoint 2007 Service Pack 2 and the August 2009 CU.
    3. Check if the problem is solved.

    Note that if it is fixed, you should thoroughly check that this update hasn't broken other parts of your site before deploying it to production. Hopefully you have a copy of your production environment replicated in test and can do this fairly easily.

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