University Computer Help Desk

Problem

You are a member of the Unified Messaging (UM) pilot at Illinois State University. When you receive a voice mail message on your campus phone, an email is sent to you with a .wav file attachment which contains the voice mail message.

In Thunderbird 8, when you receive these emails, they appear to be missing the .wav voice mail attachments.

Workarounds

This problem affects Thunderbird 8. Previous versions of Thunderbird do not have this issue. No solution for this problem in Thunderbird 8 is available at this time. However, the following suggestions can help you deal with this issue. Choose the workaround that best suits you. You do not need to use all the workaround suggestions described below.

Revert to Thunderbird 7

Thunderbird 7 displays .wav file attachments properly. This older version of Thunderbird can be installed over top of your existing Thunderbird 8 installation. This process allows you to keep all of your email, contacts, filters, and customizations without taking any special steps.

After installing Thunderbird 7, you must configure it to no longer automatically check for updates. If you allow Thunderbird to update itself, it will eventually upgrade to Thunderbird 8 again and you will experience the same problems with attachments as before.

To download and install Thunderbird 7 over top of Thunderbird 8, do the following:

1. Download Thunderbird 7.
2. Make sure Thunderbird 8 is closed and no longer running.
3. Double-click the Thunderbird 7 installer. 
4. Follow the on-screen instructions.
5. Launch Thunderbird 7.
6. Click Tools > Options.
7. Click the Update tab.
8. Under Automatically check for updates to:, remove the check mark next to Thunderbird and Installed Add-ons.
9. Click OK.

You can now see .wav attachments received from Cisco Unity Connection Messaging System.

Use "Edit as New" in Thunderbird 8

Another workaround is to right-click on a message that has a hidden attachment and select "Edit as New." This allows you to see the .wav attachment on emails you receive from the Cisco Unity Connection Messaging System.

In Thunderbird 8, you can see the .wav voice mail attachment by doing the following:

1. Open Thunderbird and locate an email from Cisco Unity Connection Messaging System.
   • This is an email sent by the campus voice mail system. In Thunderbird 8, the .wav attachment appears to be missing.
2. Right-click on the message and select Edit as New....
3. A new message window will open and includes the attached .wav file. From here you can double-click the .wav file and listen to the voice mail message.
4. When you are done, close the new message window and click Don't Save.

Install "Show All Body Parts" Add-on for Thunderbird 8

Another option is to install an add-on for Thunderbird called "Show All Body Parts." This add-on is designed to reveal hidden parts of email messages you receive.

Installing this add-on will allow you to see .wav attachments on voice mail emails you receive from the Cisco Unity Connection Messaging System. However, it will also reveal other hidden attachments and may disrupt your email viewing experience. Some emails, especially HTML-formatted emails, may look odd or broken. As a result, this work around is less desirable than the suggestions above.

To install the Show All Body Parts add-on in Thunderbird 8, do the following:

1. Go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/show-all-body-parts/ and download the add-on.
   • Make sure you know where this file was downloaded to on your computer.
2. Launch Thunderbird 8.
3. Click Tools > Add-ons.
4. Click the gear icon located next to Search all add-ons box in the upper-right corner of the window.
   • This opens a menu.
5. Click Install Add-on From File in the menu.
6. Browse to the folder where you downloaded the Show All Body Parts add-on. Select the file and click Open.
7. After installing the add-on, click View > Message Body As > Show All Body Parts.

Thunderbird 8 will now display all hidden attachments, including .wav attachments received from the Cisco Unity Connection Messaging System.

Use Outlook or OWA in Exchange

Your voice mail emails are sent to your Exchange account as well as your IMAP mail account.

When you receive an email from Cisco Unity Connection Messaging System, open Outlook or log in to Outlook Web App (OWA) to listen to the .wav attachment. You can log in to OWA at https://owa.illinoisstate.edu/.