javax mail: UTF-8 encoding issue

Question

I have seen several questions about this, but none have solved my problem.

I have a Chinese email with a pdf attachment. All the text is valid UTF-8 until it is included in the MultiPart email.

Problem: The text in the email is garbage characters when it gets to the recipient. The email header shows it is not encoded correctly.

I include both my code and the email header below:

EDIT: I have fixed the properties issue. My bug remains

Email Header

> eturn-Path: <[email protected]>
>Received: from jake-yoga3.hitronhub.home (S01061cabc083fd23.vc.shawcable.net. [96.49.181.179])
>        by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id n189sm16430794pfn.108.2017.02.24.11.29.53
>        for <[email protected]>
>        (version=TLS1_2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128);
>        Fri, 24 Feb 2017 11:29:54 -0800 (PST)
>Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2017 11:29:54 -0800 (PST)
>From: iKoda Report <[email protected]>
>To: [email protected]
>Message-ID: <1001962724.1.1487964592286@jake-yoga3>
>Subject: K;lj'l;hgjkl ä¸ ä¸ ä¸ ä¸ ä¸
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----=_Part_0_59694987.1487964592179"
> 
> ------=_Part_0_59694987.1487964592179 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Cp1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
> 
> Dear Ghjkhgjkl,
> 
> K;lj'l;hgjkl =E4=B8=AD =E4=B8=AD =E4=B8=AD =E4=B8=AD
> =E4=B8=AD=E4=B8=AD =E4=
> =B8=AD =E4=B8=AD =E4=B8=AD =E4=B8=ADhttps://www.eee.com/delivery/dsfr?uf= t=3D1012770&c=3D1012764=E4=B8=AD =E4=B8=AD =E4=B8=AD =E4=B8=AD
> =E4=B8=AD
> ------=_Part_0_59694987.1487964592179--

Email Method: Email Method:

public boolean send() throws TestReportingException, MessagingException
{
try
{

Properties mailProps = new Properties();
// Set properties required to connect to Gmail's SMTP server
mailProps.put("mail.smtp.host", "smtp.gmail.com");
mailProps.put("mail.smtp.port", "587");
mailProps.put("mail.smtp.auth", "true");
mailProps.put("mail.smtp.starttls.enable", "true");
mailProps.put("mail.mime.charset", "utf-8");

// Create a username-password authenticator to authenticate SMTP
// session
Authenticator authenticator = new Authenticator()
{
    // override the getPasswordAuthentication method
    protected PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication()
    {
        return new PasswordAuthentication(username, password);
    }
};

// Create the mail session
Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(mailProps, authenticator);
MimeMessage mimeMessage = new MimeMessage(session);
mimeMessage.setHeader("Content-Type", "text/plain; charset=UTF-8");
// Set From: header field of the header.
mimeMessage.setFrom(new InternetAddress(from, fromName));
// Set To: header field of the header.

for (String s : toList)
{
    if (null == s)
    {
        throw new TestReportingException("Email address is null");
    }
    mimeMessage.addRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO, InternetAddress.parse(s));
}

for (String s : ccList)
{
    mimeMessage.addRecipients(Message.RecipientType.CC, InternetAddress.parse(s));
}
// Set Subject: header field
mimeMessage.setSubject(subject,"UTF-8");
// Create the message part
BodyPart messageBodyPart = new MimeBodyPart();
messageBodyPart.setContent(message, "text/html; charset=utf-8");
// Now set the actual message
messageBodyPart.setText(message);
Multipart multipart = new MimeMultipart();

// Set text message part
multipart.addBodyPart(messageBodyPart);


// Part two is attachment
if (null != attachmentSource)
{
    messageBodyPart = new MimeBodyPart();
    messageBodyPart.setDataHandler(new DataHandler(attachmentSource));
    messageBodyPart.setFileName(attachmentSource.getName());
    multipart.addBodyPart(messageBodyPart);
}

// Send the complete message parts
mimeMessage.setContent(multipart);
// Send message
Transport.send(mimeMessage);
return true;
}
catch (MessagingException mex)
{
    SSm.getLogger().error(mex.getMessage());
    throw mex;
}
catch (Exception e)
{
    SSm.getLogger().error(e.getMessage(), e);
    throw new TestReportingException(e.getMessage(), e);
}
}

So, is it intentional that you initialize a Properties referenced by variable mailProps, and then initialize your mail Session with a Properties designated by a different variable? — John Bollinger
Is it possible that by the time the code you present is executed, the default mail session has been initialized with different properties? The ones you specify in Session.getDefaultInstance() are used only when the default instance is first initialized. — John Bollinger
Please post your actual code. The current code has both mailProps and maileProps, which either produces a compile error or is a serious bug. See stackoverflow.com/help/mcve. — Roland Illig
Hello, did you solve the problem? And if so, please give some updates. — Đỗ Công Bằng

Bill Shannon Bill Shannon · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-24T23:59:48

messageBodyPart.setText overwrites what you did with messageBodyPart.setContent. Instead of both, do this:

// Create the message part
MimeBodyPart messageBodyPart = new MimeBodyPart();
// Now set the actual message
messageBodyPart.setText(message, "utf-8", "html");

javax mail: UTF-8 encoding issue

2 Answers