Incoming email body (html) and body text depends on the content type

Issue

Some clients allow the creation of different HTML and text part on the emails or auto-generate the missing HTML or text part of the email when it is sent.

Symptoms:

When reviewing the sys_email records, in some cases the HTML body when previewed contains different information than the body text field.

Cause

Some clients allow the creation of different HTML and text part on the emails. When received, incoming emails are treated differently depending on the content type.

Given the HTML content, most clients will automatically create a text version. In that case, each HTML and text version is extracted from the incoming email and there is no need to generate either content. However, if the HTML content exists and the text version is not available, it is generated automatically. Similarly, if only the text content exists and the HTML version is not available, it is generated automatically.

Incoming email content type	Email body_html	Email body_text	Reason
text/plain	Generated	Extracted from email if available	Because the HTML text is not available, it is generated based on the body_text
text/html	Extracted from email if available	Generated	Because the TEXT version is not available, it is generated by stripping the HTML tags
Multipart	Extracted from email if available or generated	Extracted from email if available or generated	The available types text/plain or text/html are extracted on the multipart section

content type on the email

Resolution

If either the body text or body (HTML) in the email do not match, validate the email content type to understand the source of the differences. If the text was auto-generated, the source is on the necessary conversion. However, if the incoming emails is multipart, validate whether the client sending the emails is causing the differences because the information is extracted on the email itself.

If you depend on the email body (HTML), ensure that clients are sending the text/html content correctly. If you depend on the body text, ensure that clients are sending the text/plain content on the emails.

Note: Validate whether the differences come from automatic systems integrating by email.