Jargon in place of apostrophe in emails

[JohnDoe1980]

Hello all. I have yet another weird issue that isn't too common. What's happening is, certain emails are replacing the apostrophe with jargon such as #&% or something like that. I've narrowed it down to emails coming from one specific contact. I've googled this and a few people had this problem, with other email clients. We are using webmail. in this case. One site said the issue is known to Microsoft and is being worked on (that was a couple years ago and I can't find anything current)...

Someone said it might be due to text encoding type but unsure of how to change that. I've tried accessing the webmail through Firefox and edge and it's the same thing. Have done a virus scan with Malwarebytes and it came up clean.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[callthatgirl]

so those are online autocomplete entries, did you try hitting the X on it? If so, are they in the contacts area with the same $%^%$?

 

[JohnDoe1980]

so those are online autocomplete entries, did you try hitting the X on it? If so, are they in the contacts area with the same $%^%$?

I'm not sure what you mean by "X"

 

[callthatgirl]

there is an X next to each name as you type it in, far right of the name, that will delete the bad entry.

 

[JohnDoe1980]

there is an X next to each name as you type it in, far right of the name, that will delete the bad entry.

I don't think this is in the contacts. It's in the email body itself.

 

[Markverhyden]

Sounds like the sender is composing the code in one standard, say HTML, but then sending out as another, say ASCII. Take %20. That's a space in HTML code but you see it in a web address Part%202 which would give you the word Part followed by a space and then the number 2 with the cursor being immediately after 2

 

[JohnDoe1980]

Sounds like the sender is composing the code in one standard, say HTML, but then sending out as another, say ASCII. Take %20. That's a space in HTML code but you see it in a web address Part%202 which would give you the word Part followed by a space and then the number 2 with the cursor being immediately after 2

Interesting. I'm unsure how to proceed here as I don't have the sender's PC here. What do you think I should advise them?

 

[callthatgirl]

ok sorry, I wonder if the sender is using another email program that might be doing it.

 

[JohnDoe1980]

ok sorry, I wonder if the sender is using another email program that might be doing it.

No info on that yet. Waiting to hear back from the client.

 

[Computer Bloke]

certain emails are replacing the apostrophe with jargon such as #&% or something like that.

It might be unfashionable but let's try taking a methodical approach and start by pinning down exactly what the problem is.

1. Is it only the apostrophe that's affected?
2. Is it always replaced with the same text?
3. What precisely is that text?

Also: "jargon". I do not think it means what you think it means.

Edited to add: Have you read Bryce's How to Ask Good Questions article? I often think it should be a requirement for membership here.

 

[JohnDoe1980]

It might be unfashionable but let's try taking a methodical approach and start by pinning down exactly what the problem is.

1. Is it only the apostrophe that's affected?
2. Is it always replaced with the same text?
3. What precisely is that text?

Also: "jargon". I do not think it means what you think it means.

Edited to add: Have you read Bryce's How to Ask Good Questions article? I often think it should be a requirement for membership here.

In the from part it says from < (insert email address) >

on the left next to every line in the email there is >

and everywhere where there is an apostrophe it says ' as in they're (they're)

 

[JohnDoe1980]

Have you read Bryce's How to Ask Good Questions article?

I haven't read that until now. Thanks for the link. I'll try to keep it in mind when posting.

 

[frase]

I have seen this before and as @Markverhyden stating it seems like an encoding issue.

It is coming from a specific sender, so the issue is at the origin address. So the customer will need to change their encoding on their cPanel/Webmail.

Some info on that here -

Webmail Encoding

Check the settings in your email client or webmail service to make sure the encoding settings are set correctly.

1. Log in to your webmail service and open the email that has the jargon replacing the apostrophe.
2. Look for a "Settings" or "Options" button or link in the top menu or navigation bar.
3. Click on "Settings" or "Options" and look for an option related to "Encoding" or "Character Set". This option might be under a "Language" or "International" section.
4. Select the appropriate character encoding from the list of available options. UTF-8 is a commonly used character encoding that supports most characters, including apostrophes.
5. Save your changes and then try viewing the email again to see if the jargon has been replaced with the apostrophe character.
   
   

 

[JohnDoe1980]

I have seen this before and as @Markverhyden stating it seems like an encoding issue.

It is coming from a specific sender, so the issue is at the origin address. So the customer will need to change their encoding on their cPanel/Webmail.

Some info on that here -

Webmail Encoding

Check the settings in your email client or webmail service to make sure the encoding settings are set correctly.

1. Log in to your webmail service and open the email that has the jargon replacing the apostrophe.
2. Look for a "Settings" or "Options" button or link in the top menu or navigation bar.
3. Click on "Settings" or "Options" and look for an option related to "Encoding" or "Character Set". This option might be under a "Language" or "International" section.
4. Select the appropriate character encoding from the list of available options. UTF-8 is a commonly used character encoding that supports most characters, including apostrophes.
5. Save your changes and then try viewing the email again to see if the jargon has been replaced with the apostrophe character.
   

Thanks a bunch @frase. I will try this immediately and let you know how it works out.

 

[JohnDoe1980]

I have seen this before and as @Markverhyden stating it seems like an encoding issue.

It is coming from a specific sender, so the issue is at the origin address. So the customer will need to change their encoding on their cPanel/Webmail.

Some info on that here -

Webmail Encoding

Check the settings in your email client or webmail service to make sure the encoding settings are set correctly.

1. Log in to your webmail service and open the email that has the jargon replacing the apostrophe.
2. Look for a "Settings" or "Options" button or link in the top menu or navigation bar.
3. Click on "Settings" or "Options" and look for an option related to "Encoding" or "Character Set". This option might be under a "Language" or "International" section.
4. Select the appropriate character encoding from the list of available options. UTF-8 is a commonly used character encoding that supports most characters, including apostrophes.
5. Save your changes and then try viewing the email again to see if the jargon has been replaced with the apostrophe character.

So the webmail is very basic. I didn't see any settings like what you mentioned. All I can see that might be relevant is client type is HTML not AJAX and display HTML as text, not HTML.

 

[phaZed]

I just went through this on a guys Live Mail 2010 Install (on Windows 7 - ugh, don't ask). He had the same issue with apostrophes - this was last week.

Somehow his encoding was set to ASCII and not UTF-8.. on top of that, in Windows live mail (and I presume in Outlook) there are encoding settings for both "Reading" and Sending" mail.

 

[JohnDoe1980]

I just went through this on a guys Live Mail 2010 Install (on Windows 7 - ugh, don't ask). He had the same issue with apostrophes - this was last week.

Somehow his encoding was set to ASCII and not UTF-8.. on top of that, in Windows live mail (and I presume in Outlook) there are encoding settings for both "Reading" and Sending" mail.

Ok, this sounds promising. What exactly did you do? My client isn't using an email app, rather webmail and there are no encoding options in the settings. I'm wondering if it's on account of the encoding settings on the senders email client. If that's the case, I can try to get them to change it to UTF-8

 

[Computer Bloke]

I'm wondering if it's on account of the encoding settings on the senders email client.

Yes. You're not the first person to mention this...

It is coming from a specific sender, so the issue is at the origin address. So the customer will need to change their encoding on their cPanel/Webmail.

Nailed it.

 

[JohnDoe1980]

Yes. You're not the first person to mention this...


Nailed it.

Ok, I may have been wrong when I said it's coming from one specific sender. Spoke with the client and they said that this is appearing in other emails, usually ones they forward to people, though I haven't seen that yet. They have thunderbird installed as well so I checked in there and it's the same as in the webmail interface. I'm sort of at a loss here. I can't seem to find the encoding section of the settings in thunderbird and it is definitely not included in the webmail interface.

 

[phaZed]

Ok, this sounds promising. What exactly did you do? My client isn't using an email app, rather webmail and there are no encoding options in the settings. I'm wondering if it's on account of the encoding settings on the senders email client. If that's the case, I can try to get them to change it to UTF-8

It was just a few settings in the literal Settings menu of Live Mail... looked something like this: