Hotmail/Outlook Sent email message does not contain the same content when viewed in Firefox and Safari browsers.
Okay, I've got a doozy for you. I was working with my Hotmail/Outlook web-based email while using Firefox today on my desktop Mac with OS 10.6.8, and I kept getting an intermittent message at the top of my email window, "We can't connect to Outlook right now. Please try again later." These messages usually appear once every so often and are no big deal, albeit not with the frequency that they appeared today.
I eventually completed my email and went to print my Sent message, and noticed that the content of the Sent message was not accurate. Paragraphs were missing and the entire message was goofed up. Luckily I had copied my message to the clipboard before sending it, so I pasted my message content into a new email and resent it to the recipient. The same thing happened again! When I viewed the second Sent message, the body of the message was identical to the prior goofed up Sent message.
I opened up my Safari browser and went to the Sent messages folder and located those same two Sent messages to see if the issue was there. Both Sent messages were 100% accurate and correct when viewed in Safari. So I returned to Firefox, cleared everything in the history (the cache, cookies, saved searches, download history, etc.)m and shut Firefox down and reopened it. When I returned to my email and checked my Sent messages, the same incorrect Sent messages were still present in my Sent messages folder.
Then I went to my iPhone to check on the appearance of my Sent messages there, and everything was correct. I forwarded one of my Sent messages from the phone to my email address, and returned to Firefox on my desktop to see how it looked as a new message. The email was 100% correct when I viewed it within the Inbox, however, once I moved it into the Sent Messages folder and opened it up, the content magically converted to the same goofed up message as the prior sent messages! Now that is bizarre! What on earth??? So then I moved the converted goofy message back to my Inbox to see if it stayed messed up or reverted back to the correct original version, but unfortunately it stayed all goofed up.
Can anyone explain what is going on here? And how do I fix this? What would cause Firefox to retain these incorrect Sent messages, while the correct versions appear in Safari on my desktop and iPhone? Could it have something to do with the "We can't connect to Outlook" message that I kept getting intermittently when I was working on my email in Firefox? Even more perplexing, why would FF take the forwarded accurate message from my phone, which appeared normal and correct in my Inbox, and convert it to the messed up version after I moved it to the Sent messages folder? Is there a persistent corruption affecting my Sent messages folder in Firefox, which isn't getting fixed with the self-help measures I attempted?
Web-based email should be the same no matter what browser you use to access your email, so this is very odd indeed. What do I have to do to fix this? I don't use Safari at all. Firefox is my default browser. If my Sent message appears wrong in Firefox that will cause me future problems, especially if I need to forward the Sent message to another party. Thank you.
Modified by youngjane1118
All Replies (3)
In some cases, Firefox may omit some HTML content if it is contained with "deeply nested" HTML tags. That can occur if material is repeatedly reforwarded or in some cases as a result of a formatting problem. (For example: email text doesn't show in hotmail or gmail in Firefox, but it does in internet explorer.) However, it is very difficult to understand why the message would look different in the Inbox and the Sent folder.
Thank you jscher2000. It is the strangest thing I have ever encountered. This was a brand new message I was composing There was no forward, no reply, just an original message I was writing.
It appears FF saved an earlier draft of the message I was working on, and even though I made subsequent edits and added paragraphs before sending it, with all the connection interruptions that day, perhaps FF was unable to save those changes in the copy that goes into the Sent messages folder, even though the actual message was sent correctly, as evidenced in Safari.
I am still perplexed as to why Firefox did not update the Sent message in the Sent Messages folder, since the message was sent correctly. I am even more perplexed as to why it converted the correct copy I forwarded from my iPhone, to the goofed up version once I moved the message to my Sent messages folder in Firefox. That is totally bizarre.
I do not know if I have a corrupt preference file in Firefox, or if I should Reset Firefox, but I hesitate to do anything since everything else seems to be just fine. Only that one email was affected. I'm wondering if that odd mailbox behavior is indicative of something that should be addressed with further measures or not. I did contact Microsoft to find out if there was a new glitch with Outlook and Firefox, but they said no (of course).
Modified by youngjane1118
I do not think that using Firefox's Refresh feature will help in this case, because I suspect that there is something unusual about the message that every installation of Firefox will handle the same. One way to test that is:
Create a new Firefox profile
A new profile will have your system-installed plugins (e.g., Flash) and extensions (e.g., security suite toolbars), but no themes, other extensions, or other customizations. It also should have completely fresh settings databases and a fresh cache folder.
This new profile will exist in parallel with and not modify your current settings.
Quit out of Firefox completely and start up in the Profile Manager as described in this article: Profile Manager - Create, remove or switch Firefox profiles.
Do not delete any profiles here!
Any time you want to switch profiles, exit Firefox and return to this dialog.
Click the Create Profile button, assign a name like May14, skip the option to change the folder location, and create your new profile. Then start Firefox in the new profile and visit your email site again.
Does the message have the same issue?
When returning to the Profile Manager, you might be tempted to use the Delete Profile button. But... it's a bit too easy to accidentally delete your "real" profile, so I recommend resisting the temptation. If you do want to clean up later, I suggest making a backup of all your profiles first in case something were to go wrong.