Various AOL problems.

Dear List Member:

There are two serious AOL bugs covered by this document.

1. You can't post to a mailing list
2. Your mailing list mail stops or isn't properly delivered, or you are removed from a list for no apparent reason.

BUG#1: I cannot post to the list from AOL

This bug only applies to users of AOL version 6.0 and higher. Users of older versions of AOL are not affected. 

As you know, AOL members are now having extraordinary difficulty when posting to many mailing lists (Yahoo-groups, e-groups, and many majordomo and mailman based lists as well) using AOL 6.0 or later because AOL now HTML encodes all e-mail by default and there is no way to turn off this extremely irritating feature.

This is a known bug in AOL which AOL acknowledges exists, yet they have not made an effort to fix it in subsequent releases. If this affects you, please complain to AOL and ask why their software is becoming so unfriendly to the rest of the net. Many users, in this age of worms, viruses, and spyware disable HTML and MIME encoding on their machines even when their software supports it.

Specifically, the newer versions of AOL for the PC (6.0 and higher) and for the MAC (OS X versions only) have a bug insofar as anything not sent in Arial 10 point type (Geneva on the Mac) is being encoded in HTML. Since HTML encoded documents are not processed by most lists, membership participation has been reduced. In fact, many computers users reject HTML and MIME encoded e-mails because they can contain viruses, a detail AOL seems to have overlooked. Also, many spam filters automatically reject HTML encoded mail because it often appears to be spam and most spam is HTML encoded.

There are four reported workarounds listed in order of preference:

1. Although this is inconvenient, it is the best workaround: you can use AOL's web mail. List member MikeyRS suggested to me that as a workaround for the AOL bug you try and post by accessing AOL.com through your browser. You can still access your mailbox there regardless of what version of AOL you run. I tried it, and it works fine.
2. This method is offered by AOL's technical support and supposedly works with later versions of AOL. To send e-mail with a plain text format, please follow the steps below:
   A. On the AOL Toolbar, click WRITE.
   B. In Send To, type the e-mail address of the person to whom you want to send a message. (To send the same message to another person, type a comma and add the next e-mail address.)
   B. In Subject, type a brief title or description for your message.
   D. Place the cursor in the body of the e-mail. Right-click on it then select COMPOSE AS PLAIN TEXT.
   E. Type your message and when you have finished, click SEND NOW to send the e-mail.
3. This method works on AOL PC 7.0 and I have personally tested it numerous times with success. You type your message normally, and then select the entire message (use control-A to select all to be sure you get all the text). Next, right click and on the menu that pops up, select text and then select normal. Send the message without unhilighting the text. This seems to work for most users.
4. This work around does not appear to work for most members, though some people seem to have luck with it. After you are done typing, you select all the text and then set the font to Arial 10 (Geneva 10 on the Mac) even if that happens to be your default font.

Many list members have reported success with the previous methods while others cannot seem to post at all without resorting to web-mail. The real solution is to downgrade to AOL 5.0 or earlier for the PC or Mac -- you will find it more stable and noticeably speedier and the older versions have much less advertising too. You may also wish to consider writing AOL and letting them know how you feel about this bug. They may also have another workaround that works for your configuration. I have found NO WORKAROUND for AOL 8.0 & 9.0 for the PC except the first option (in blue) above.

BUG#2: Mail Delivery and/or Unsubscription Issues

There is another bug caused by a new feature in AOL versions 8 and higher for the PC and version X for the Macintosh. I do not believe AOL is aware of this bug.

These new versions have a "REPORT SPAM" button. If you use it -- even accidentally-- on a piece of mail from this mailing list (actually any mailing list running from Majordomo or Mailman), you will cause yourself to be removed from that mailing list. An explanation follows:

If you click the button, the person who posted the message is added to your PERSONAL block list and the legitimate mail is reported as spam to AOL. That part is what one would expect. However, here's the bug: When that person posts again, their mail to you is blocked just as you wanted. AOL's mail software (correctly) attempts to send a "You have been blocked" message -- and therein lies the bug.

The reply to the blocked post goes to the list ERRORS-TO address and not to the person who is blocked. So, the list member thinks they've successfully blocked posts from that person, yet what happens is the bounces come to the list's administrative box. Therefore, the list administrator removes the person who put the block up (many lists cause this to be done automatically) rather than deal with error messages every time an individual posts to the list. Be careful with your REPORT SPAM button.