"Send a Message" Function on LCR

[ambldsorg]

I use two separate Mac computers concurrently when I work on my calling and I used to attach documents from one Mac to the other Mac, the latter of which is where I would draft my messages in Send a Message. Recently, for some unknown reason, using that process would render some attachments as 0kb files, which would cause me to get the same error message you shared.

This is precisely the kind of potential side-effect that I mentioned could happen here:

https://tech.churchofjesuschrist.org/fo ... hp?t=41439

The Church has a major flaw in LCR and has not yet recognized it or fixed it. I have been trying to report it through any and all channels since 2019. What happens when your email provider receives an email that has ten million characters all on one line? Well, given that the behavior produced by LCR is prohibited per RFC standard, it's entirely possible that they truncate the line to 998 (or even 0) which would then render the attachment garbage and your Mac may just show it as a 0kb file.

[wrigjef]

I am sorry, but if email list operators like MailChimp and others are able to deliver millions of newsletters successfully in a consistent manner the church should be able to do it as well.

The church is doing better, but for a long time they wouldn't follow convention for mass emails. For example, it took them a long time to allow members to opt out of emails from LCR and to provide those instructions at the bottom of each email. Some frustrated members would mark them as spam. So far, I've not heard if the church has made those same controls available to leadership for those members who have asked for "no contact".

I’m sorry but I still believe that if the church wanted “no contact” lists, that they would make specific tools to house and maintain them. A past Bishop found a quote from a general authority (sorry I don’t recall the reference) this quote said that members can’t dictate the conditions of their own membership. They have the agency to make it known how they wish to be treated, and we have the agency to act as the Spirit directs on a case by case basis. I personally feel that they should encouraged and welcomed to return to the fold but if not they should have some contact with the church (email at minimum) or they should talk to their Bishop and go through the process to have their records removed.

[johnsherwood65]

Would love to be able to schedule messages to go out. The ability to "Send Now", or "Send on" with a date and local time filter. Would be super handy.

[katiesunbeam]

Is there a limit to the number of messages allowed to be sent in one day? We are trying to send Primary Program parts to 36 families and seem to be limited at just 6 emails a day?

[lajackson]

Is there a limit to the number of messages allowed to be sent in one day? We are trying to send Primary Program parts to 36 families and seem to be limited at just 6 emails a day?

I do not know if there is a limit, but I would not use LCR to send those messages. I would email the individuals separately, or hand them out to the children and families at Church this Sunday.

[caillines]

I've started getting issues with members not receiving messages again.

This time it seems to be limited to those messages with attachments, as I send a test message to one of the people that didn't receive, but without an attachment, and they received it.
Multiple domains, completely separate ISPs.

[ambldsorg]

This time it seems to be limited to those messages with attachments, as I send a test message to one of the people that didn't receive, but without an attachment, and they received it.

This sounds a lot like what I've documented as a serious bug in the LCR email system here:

viewtopic.php?t=41439

Basically, the crux of it is that when attachments are added to emails, they are MIME encoded and must conform to email RFCs that dictate limits on how messages must be formatted. The attachments that are sent via LCR do not meet such requirements (by placing a 10 million character attachment all one one line). The result is that it is unpredictable how anyone can receive such messages because implementations of SMTP are so diverse. Some providers may accept it but truncate the line, thus rendering the attachment broken. Some may choose to flag it as spam because it violates the RFCs. Some may reject the message as not conforming. The only viable and legitimate solution is for the Church LCR system to correct this misbehavior and properly format MIME attachments.

Is this the cause of your trouble? The problem is that it's extremely difficult to diagnose because there is no contact possible with anyone who works on LCR or who is an email administrator. You could try sending an LCR message to this person using a very small attachment, one that will not exceed the limits. For example, a plain text .txt file that has just a single line of text that says "Test". If they receive that message with its attachment, but not larger attachments, then you can at least have some more confidence that the problem is the one I've identified above. However, I have been trying to communicate with someone in the Church for over 5 years on this problem and have yet to find anyone who is willing to do anything about it, so plan to be patient.

[sebastian.buck]

Basically, the crux of it is that when attachments are added to emails, they are MIME encoded and must conform to email RFCs that dictate limits on how messages must be formatted.

That is technically correct and might explain the problem. BUT: Billions of emails with attachments are sent daily worldwide. Email providers around the world do this without any problems. Size limits for sending emails are communicated to the sender and exceeding size limits for receiving emails throw an error message that will also be communicated to the sender.

This is no new technology. It has been around for many decades. LCR seems to be one of the only systems to have constant and ongoing problems with it.

[ambldsorg]

That is technically correct and might explain the problem. BUT: Billions of emails with attachments are sent daily worldwide.

You're right, and those billions of emails all follow the RFC. If you don't believe me, you can look at the email messages that have attachments sent from any of the major providers, and from anywhere else. Send yourself an email with a huge attachment, then view the source of the email, you'll see that the MIME attachment conforms by taking long strings of base64 encoded data and splitting it into multiple lines that are terminated with CRLF every 78 characters or so.

For example, you'll see something like:

Code: Select all
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But if this same sequence of bytes were sent by LCR you would see them all on one line, which would violate RFC5322's MUST clause, which would result in unpredictable behavior:

Code: Select all

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

This is no new technology. It has been around for many decades. LCR seems to be one of the only systems to have constant and ongoing problems with it.

Well, let's be honest, LCR is definitely not the only system to have problems with it---email has generally become challenging because everyone is out to block everyone else. I'm not going to fault LCR for having trouble with email, however, it can at least do its best by eliminating egregious and known bugs in the system such as the one I've identified.

[ambldsorg]

Size limits for sending emails are communicated to the sender and exceeding size limits for receiving emails throw an error message that will also be communicated to the sender.

And this too is also part of the problem. There is little real communication of problems from LCR email to the sender. As I pointed out elsewhere, all that is sent back to the person who is using LCR to send emails is a very generic:

The recipients below were rejected by the server. Please verify their email addresses.

But this lacks the very specifics that would help either the sender or the recipient to be able to properly diagnose and resolve the problem on their own. Which server rejected it? How is one to go about verifying the email address? I know for a fact that in my case, the final destination's email server did not reject it, so who did? What was the reason given for the rejection? Without these kinds of details, using LCR to send email is going to remain a frustrating experience unless everything always works perfectly 100% of the time.