Outlook 2016 - chinese characters appearing in messages when replying/forwarding

Anonymous
2017-04-24T13:29:42+00:00

Hello,

I am investigating an issue with Outlook 2016 and seemingly random appearances of chinese characters in email messages when replying or forwarding. I have a Exchange 365 hybrid environment and O365 pro plus office installed on workstations.

I have not been able to pinpoint a common factor why or when this happens. It is possible to reproduce the issue by sending a plain text message to a O365 group and then reply/forward the same message > header information is transformed into "chinese" (I have no idea what they actually are) characters. This does not happen with all groups or senders which is why I am looking into Outlook at the moment.

I`ve tried to change Outlook settings: use UTF8 with mailto protocol, change the encoding settings to different options etc. without success. 

I`d like to hear how would you start to troubleshoot this issue?

BR,

Sam

Outlook | Windows | Classic Outlook for Windows | For home

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-05-16T06:25:49+00:00

    Thank you El Burgo - and please forgive me my ignorance, but how do I disable that add-in ? Thanks again

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-05-15T23:08:23+00:00

    BeRo_52_CH,

    Will you be able to figure out what to do based on El Burgo's reply?  In a nutshell, you don't need to turn off your entire McAfee protection system.  Rather, there is one component that seems to be causing the problem.  You may notice the footer at the bottom of your emails that says the message has been scanned by McAfee.  That's the piece you need to disable.  I turned off all email scanning for my system, and the Chinese character problem stopped.  I'm not sure how to turn off only one add-in like El Burgo suggested.  But maybe El Burgo can provide us with some additional guidance.  Thank you El Burgo.

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-05-15T16:08:32+00:00

    I uninstalled and reinstalled the chinese language pack. Then added Outlook to the trust center in Adobe.

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  4. Anonymous
    2019-05-15T15:56:26+00:00

    Thank you C3SD - Yes I do have McAfee and no, haven't tried that, but if I disable my anti-virus system then I lose any protection I have with anti-virus system.  Is this problem directly related to the McAfee anti-virus program and isn't there any other solution to this problem than disabling the system ?

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  5. Anonymous
    2019-05-15T14:27:56+00:00

    BeRo_52_CH,

    If you have the McAfee anti-virus system scanning your email, did you try disabling it?  That worked for me.

    C3SD

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