base64 encoded string gets truncated through fgets call while parsing IMAP

Question

I am parsing emails with Zend_Mail, and strangely some content gets truncated without an obvious reason and malforms the email parts.

For example

Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="file.sdv"
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Gets truncated to

Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="file.sdv"

DQogICAgICBTT05FO0xBTkRJTkdTREE7U0FMR1NEQVRPIDtOQVNKIDtSRURTS0FQICAgICAgICAg
ICAgIDsgRklTS0VTTEFHO1BSRVNFUlYgICA7ICBUSUxTVEFORDsgU1TYUlJFTFNFOyAgS1ZBTElU
RVQ7T01TVFlQRSAgO01JTlNURVBSSVM7ICAgICBWRVJESTsgICBLVkFOVFVNOyAgUlVORFZFS1Qg
IA0KLS0tLS0tLS0tLTstLS0tLS0tLS0tOy0tLS0tLS0tLS07LS0tLS07LS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0t
LS0tLS07LS0tLS0tLS0tLTstLS0tLS0tLS0tOy0tLS0tLS0tLS07LS0tLS0tLS0tLTstLS0tLS0t
LS

a var_dump on each line shows this.

string(78) "DQogICAgICBTT05FO0xBTkRJTkdTREE7U0FMR1NEQVRPIDtOQVNKIDtSRURTS0FQICAgICAgICAg
"
string(78) "ICAgIDsgRklTS0VTTEFHO1BSRVNFUlYgICA7ICBUSUxTVEFORDsgU1TYUlJFTFNFOyAgS1ZBTElU
"
string(78) "RVQ7T01TVFlQRSAgO01JTlNURVBSSVM7ICAgICBWRVJESTsgICBLVkFOVFVNOyAgUlVORFZFS1Qg
"
string(78) "IA0KLS0tLS0tLS0tLTstLS0tLS0tLS0tOy0tLS0tLS0tLS07LS0tLS07LS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0t
"
string(78) "LS0tLS07LS0tLS0tLS0tLTstLS0tLS0tLS0tOy0tLS0tLS0tLS07LS0tLS0tLS0tLTstLS0tLS0t
"
string(5) "LS)
"
string(17) "TAG5 OK Success
"    

or in other email at

DQogICAgICBTT05FO0xBTkRJTkdTREE7U0FMR1NEQVRPIDtOQVNKIDtSRURTS0FQICAgICAgICAg
ICAgIDsgRklTS0VTTEFHO1BSRVNFUlYgICA7ICBUSUxTVEFORDsgU1TYUlJFTFNFOyAgS1ZBTElU
RVQ7T01TVFlQRSAgO01JTlNURVBSSVM7ICAgICBWRVJESTsgICBLVkFOVFVNOyAgUlVORFZFS1Qg
IA0KLS0tLS0tLS0tLTstLS0tLS0tLS0tOy0tLS0tLS0tLS07LS0tLS07LS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tLS0t
LS0tLS07LS0tLS0tLS0tLTstLS0tLS0tLS0tOy0tLS0tLS0tLS07LS0tLS0tLS0tLTstLS0tLS0t
LS0tOy0tLS0tLS0tLTstLS0tLS0tLS0tO

I cannot figure out why is stopping there. The transmitions should have stoped at the end of the line only. This is the line that gets the string from the IMAP Server.

$line = @fgets($this->_socket);

The encoded text contains a string like, but again this is truncated in various parts in different emails.

----------;----------;----------;-----;--------------------;----------;----------;--

I've tried to add a size to fgets() but to no results. I also enabled/disabled "auto_detect_line_endings" php_ini setting, again to no result.

I've also opened a bug report with ZF although the error does not seem to be in the library.

Do you see anything strange with this encoded string?

UPDATE

New research shows that the emails get truncated after 584 chars. Still don't know why. Sent a question to google as well. See here.

A Bad email headers :

Delivered-To: [email protected]
Received: by 10.216.3.208 with SMTP id 58cs248812weh;
    Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:14:14 -0800 (PST)
Received: by 10.204.153.217 with SMTP id l25mr1285471bkw.108.1258722853863;
    Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:14:13 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path: <>
Received: from MTX4.mbn1.net (mtx4.mbn1.net [213.188.129.252])
    by mx.google.com with SMTP id 2si1800716bwz.60.2009.11.20.05.14.12;
    Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:14:13 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of MTX4.mbn1.net designates         213.188.129.252 as permitted sender) client-ip=213.188.129.252;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of MTX4.mbn1.net designates 213.188.129.252 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=
Resent-From: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="===============1703099044=="
MIME-Version: 1.0
From: <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
CC:
Subject: some subject
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 20 Nov 2009 13:14:08.0121 (UTC) FILETIME=[5792C690:01CA69E3]
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:14:08 +0100
X-STA-Metric: 0 (engine=030)
X-STA-NotSpam: tlf: vedlagt skip:__ 40 fil cc:2**0
X-STA-Spam: header:MIME-Version: charset:us-ascii header:Subject:1 to:2**0 header:From:1
X-BTI-AntiSpam: score:0,sta:0/030,dnsbl:passed,sw:off,bsn:38/passed,spf:off,bsctr:passed/1,dk:off,pbmf:none,ipr:0/3,trusted:no,ts:no,bs:no,ubl:passed
X-Auto-Response-Suppress: DR, RN, NRN, OOF, AutoReply
Resent-Message-Id: <[email protected]>
Resent-Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:14:11 +0100 (CET)

--===============1703099044==
Content-Type: application/octet-stream
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="file.sdv"
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....

For those interested in an answer and not in the (ex) bounty, more clues.

Gmail is returning a short value in response to RFC822.SIZE, which can lead to truncated messages. (They are off by one byte for each header line, apparently not counting two characters for CR/LF.)

Answer 1

I think you're looking in the wrong place.

The imap server gives you the mail message truncated, and then returns its status line TAG5 OK Success.

I don't see how your (/php's) handling of the socket would make a few kb worth of stream disappear, to magically fix the stream right before this status line.

So either the message is truncated by itself (have you verified the message contents through some other way?) or the imap server is just broken.

The first things I would do, are:

• find a sufficiently silent environment to put your project, where you can strace -f -s 10240 -p <pid> apache's process to verify the socket interaction (assuming a linux/apache environment)
• and/or: use tcpdump, ethereal or equivalent to check what's coming in on the line

My guess is that you will see the exact same truncated strings coming in on the wire. Meaning you can shift your focus to the imap server.

Reassuring yourself that you're looking in the right place can save a lot of time.