Re: [otrs] Problem with attachments

19 Mar 2004

      ...
Re-reading the previous posts, I get the impression you're trying to
open the files by directly clicking on them? This won't work, as it's
not meant to be that way. Click on them in OTRS, this should work. Does
it?
I have tried both opening the file from the OTRS dialog and in the file system, and have noted the
following:

1. The attached files are properly registered as attachments and can be selected in OTRS dialogs
(e.g. History). Opening them within an OTRS dialog results in an error, as the associated program
(e.g. Winzip for zip files, IExplore for images etc.) indicates the file is "corrupt" (i.e. could
not be read).

2. The system has been set up with the option "TicketStorageModule =
Kernel::System::Ticket::ArticleStorageFS", so the attachments are subsequently visible in the
respective file system folders (i.e.C:/otrs/var/article). The files are not of correct (initial)
size, and cannot be opened or executed correctly when selecting them directly from the file system
(i.e. by means of a file manager such as the Windows Explorer).

Selecting attachments from the file system does not work because the file stored by OTRS has a
header prepended to the original file indicating the "mime type".

For ZIP files, the following is prepended:
  application/x-zip-compressed<CRLF>

For PDF files, the following is prepended:
  application/pdf<CRLF>

For EXE files, the following is prepended:
  application/octet-stream<CRLF>

<CRLF> indicates the "carriage return/line feed" pair.

Selecting the attachment in a OTRS dialog activates the associated application, which in turn cannot
resolve invalid information in the "header" of the file.

I have investigated further the source code for database/file system processing and determined that
specifying binary mode when storing or retrieving attachments is required. The idea was to
suppress any translation of character data content. To test this, I changed the source code as
follows:

in module otrs\Kernel\System\Ticket\ArticleStorageFS.pm:

sub WriteArticlePart {
    ...
    ...
    # --
    # write attachment to fs
    # --
    if (open (DATA, "> $Param{Path}/$Param{Filename}")) {

        #   Branko 18.3.2004 set binary mode for stored data
        binmode(DATA);

        print DATA "$Param{ContentType}\n";
        print DATA $Param{Content};
        close (DATA);
        return 1;
    }
    else {
    ...
    ...

sub GetArticleAttachment {
    ...
    ...
    my %Data;
    my $Counter = 0;
    $Data{Filename} = $Index{$Param{FileID}};
    if (open (DATA, "< $Self->{ArticleDataDir}/$ContentPath/$Param{ArticleID}/
         $Index{$Param{FileID}}")) {

        #   Branko 19.3.2004 set binary mode for stored data
        binmode(DATA);

        while (<DATA>) {
            $Data{ContentType} = $_ if ($Counter == 0);
            $Data{Content} .= $_ if ($Counter > 0);
            $Counter++;
        }
        close (DATA);
        chomp ($Data{ContentType});
        return %Data;
    }
    else {
    ...
    ...

Now I can access properly all attachment types stored in the file system, by means of the OTRS
dialogs. The correction to the software may be OS specific.

Kindly comment on this.

Regards
Branko Zecevic