HTML mail w/ cable modem

[zimmie6576]

This may sound odd, but maybe someone has a solution. A week or so ago, I noticed that most html email I get (I use Outlook Express 6) will not display any pictures. I thought this was a WinXP problem, but I tried it on my laptop (which had WinME at the time), and had the same problem. I know it isn't an error in the mail, since I can open it an see the pictures perfectly fine at work. Here's the kicker though: I took my laptop, disconnected from my network, used dialup to get online, then check my mail. All html emails loaded perfectly fine. Even the ones that didn't work when it was on the network, connecting through my router and cable modem.

I have a LinkSys BEFSR41 router, and I was wondering if this is some strange ISP-related anomaly, or is there some security setting on the router that is buried somewhere that would be causing this. The strange thing is, neither computer had a problem opening up the email a month or so ago, and the issue didn't happen until I put XP on my desktop. I thought that was problem, but it doesn't seem to be now. Any ideas?

 

[JustinLerner]

I assume you are not referring to attachments to your e-mail, but embedded images (like backgrounds) in the e-mail.

When you send an e-mail with html and background pictures, the background picture is not actully part of the e-mail, but sent to some special internet caching facility which assigns your 'picture' some identifying allocation for internet retrieval and viewing.

If you tell your e-mail client to disconnect after retrieving e-mail, this is probably the problem, since the html background and other 'embedded' pictures aren't really a part of the e-mail, but are given some cache assignment and reference number somewhere for display as a background in the sent e-mail and therefore need additional time to download to actually view all the html content.

Is your router packet filetering protocols and packets and thus preventing you to view the pictures?
If you connect to the internet by modem, and then download and view e-mail while connected, you should see the pictures. (Notice how when you view an html e-mail, additional data is sent/received from the internet and then you can see the pictures?) This of course, doesn't apply to attachments.