How do I open image file attachments within Mozilla?

July 29, 2004 6:21 PM

Mozilla has problems for me opening image files sent as attachments in Yahoo mail. When I try to just open the file - a jpg - Mozilla opens a blank browser window, then a dialogue box saying "Mozilla doesn't know how to handle this file" and asks me to choose "open with default program" "open with... (choose)" or "save to disk." But it's a jpg! Shouldn't it just open it like every other jpg it encounters? I tried deleting the listing under "helper apps" under preferences and starting over, but I still get the same thing. Only seems to happen with jpgs sent as attachments in Yahoo mail. Any ideas how to get it to just open the file without an extra blank window and extra steps?
posted by dnash to computers & internet (6 comments total)

What does the dialog say the content-type reported by the server is? Mozilla will take the webserver at its word if it is reporting the content-type wrong (i.e. not image/jpeg).
posted by thebabelfish at 7:38 PM on July 29, 2004

This is Yahoo's fault. When clicking on the JPEG attachment (or any attachment), the response's "Content-Disposition" HTTP header forces Mozilla (or Firefox, or IE -- it happens in all browsers) to download the file rather than just display it.

I just sent a test JPEG to my Yahoo account. The MIME type is correct (image/jpeg). I don't have a packet sniffer installed so I'm not sure what the HTTP headers say exactly, but my money is on "Content-Disposition: attachment."
posted by zsazsa at 8:13 PM on July 29, 2004

Weird. I just fired up ethereal to check zsazsa's idea, but I can't replicate the problem with a test account I just created at Yahoo.
posted by thebabelfish at 8:47 PM on July 29, 2004

The dialogue box says "The site has suggested that (filename) be handled as an attachment. It is of type image/jpg and is located at... "

I hadn't noticed it saying it that way before. I think maybe that changed when I deleted the "helper applications" preference for jpg's so it could re-establish a new preference for that.
posted by dnash at 8:51 PM on July 29, 2004

zsazsa: this is OT, but wouldn't the LiveHHTPHeaders plugin let you see the headers w/o a sniffer?
posted by turbodog at 1:52 PM on July 30, 2004

The problem seems to be intermittent. I can sometimes simply view the image, other times open it through that torturous method.

Suggestion? Click the image, not the filename. That seems to work better for me.
posted by joeclark at 6:52 PM on July 30, 2004