.dat files being attached instead of .pdf files

We are experiencing the same thing. Looking forwad to any suggestions anyone might have. We reinstalled the pdf driver with the same results.

I never had any problems e-mailing invoices with QB Pro 2006. However, I just upgraded to QB Pro 2008 this month, sent my invoices through Outlook, and several of my customers received my email with no .pdf invoice attached, or an invoice in .dat format was attached and they could not open it.

These same customers always received my email with the .pdf attached and could open it when I used QB 2006.

I have seen numerous complaints about this issue and I have also posted previously about this problem but have yet to see a solution posted.

Does anyone have a solution????? Is anyone from Intuit listening????

Hi Everyone,
I'm sorry you are experiencing this problem.  Unfortunately, I've been unable to duplicate it.  Could you provide some additional information that might help to isolate the trouble?  Please provide the following:

• Window Operating System (2000, XP, Vista, etc.) Include service pack #


• Outlook version


• When a single email is sent, does it always work correctly?


• When a batch email is sent, does it always convert all of the attachments to .dat format?


• When a batch email is sent, are you sending to one email address or multiple addresses?


• Have you consulted with your ISP (Internet Service Provider)?  My suspicion is that your email provider may be causing this.  Many ISP's have restrictions in place limiting the size of data sent over their connections to prevent bogging down their servers.  In previous versions of QuickBooks, your emails were sent through Intuit servers where no such limitations existed.


Steve

Just sent out our January invoices and the same problem. Some customers received the invoice, some got the email cover note but no invoice was attached, and some received the invoice in .dat format that they were unable to open.

Here is the info you requested:

Windows XP SP2
Outlook 2003 SP2

Single emails from QB have worked correctly, however I have only sent a couple of single emails so this is probably not a good test.

Most of my customers receive a .pdf attachment, not a .dat attachment

When I batch email I am sending to 60 different addresses, no duplicate emails to the same address.

If my ISP has a limit on the size of data, would not all of my invoices sent by email encounter the same problem? Right now about 10% of my customers are having problems.

Please let me know if you need any additional info.

Laurel

I just did some more research about this problem.

One customer received a .dat attachment both last month and this month that they could not open.

Another customer had no problem last month, but this month said that there was no invoice attached.

Having problems creating pdf cannot e-mail invoices or reports. cannot create pdf file followed all 8 steps outlined in kbID=1008541 still no good. windows vista 64. QB premier 2008 rel R3P outlook 2003 ver 10.6822.6830 sp3.. I had QB2006 working fine then updated to vista 64 to handle more memory 8gb now and faster q6700 intel. but QB 2006 would not work on vista so just bought QB 2008 installed all updates and updated data file all is working fine but cannot send out invoices via e-mail. i can print everything fine..

My operating system is Windows XP.
My Outlook version is 2003 (11.8169.8172) SP3.

This conversion to .dat hasn't happened with a single email. It has only happened when I am sending multiple emails. Only a few are converted, not the whole batch.

I've written down the clients it happened to with my Jan invoices. I will compare to those it happens to when I send out my Feb invoices to see if they are the same ones or different.

I just sent out my Feb. invoices. I sent them in small batches (6-9) to see if it made any difference. It did not. Some of the same customers' invoices which were converted to a .dat file in Jan were also converted in Feb. Some were not. Some which were not converted in Jan, were in Feb.

I am having the same problem as the others. Invoices and statements are sent in batches as a pdf attachment, but the customers receive it as "winmail.dat" as the attachment. They can't open this file. I am using Outlook 2003 SP3, under WIN XP Professional SP2. I thought this might be a security issue on the recipient's side, but now I think it is a QuickBooks issue. this is a repetitive problem since I installed Enterprise v.8, as it uses Outlook to send invoices. When I check Outlook, the invoices are in the Outbox until I press "send/receive". Then they appear in "sent items" as they should. However, when I try to move them into another folder, the time and date sent disappears from the header. However when I open the message it shows correctly. The attachments also open correctly from my folders after sending. Another odd thing that may contribute to this problem: the recipients name and address appear in single quotes in the "to" or "cc" areas after QB sends the invoices to Outlook, yet they are not entered this way in QB. Could this conversion contribute to a security issue with Outlook to prevent "spamming" or virus propagation?

hello
not finding any real answers, but finding similar issues.
when we send an individual invoice or estimate via quickbooks ent 2008, it attaches and sends pdf attachments fine.
when we select email, and choose file/send/and one recipient has multiple invoices, they receive their invoices stripped at dat files.
we are using outlook for the transport, and when sending one at a time, from the invoice screen, i can see the box, stating plain text, natively, if it helps you.
when we do a bulk send, through the send on the file menu, we dont see the emails before sent, and i do not know if they are actually using outlook as a transport or not.
any updated info on this is greatly appreciated, as our workaround is to send everything one at a time, from the invoice or estimate screen, instead of the send option on the file menu

regards

Hey Steve,

We experience the same .dat problem when we send out 1 invoice or estimate at a time.

We use Outlook 2003 SP3
Windows XP Pro ver. 5.1 SP2

We NEVER had this problem using Qbooks 2006!
What busts my chops is that Qbooks wants $ to trouble shoot this.

Greg Spry

PS - additional Info

The .dat happens more for us with estimates not invoices. Right now we are slow and are sending out singulary. When we get busy though...

As of today we will start logging all failures and reporting in.

I've got a call into my IT folks and they will be researching.

To the community, I bet we'll fix this before Intuit!

have not tested this solution, but found it this am, after doing a new dat search, and plan to check today, and see if it is relevent. The person was having issues with pdf paystubs, however the transport and the coverter should be the same, so perhaps the solution is the same.

I pasted the information below from the other thread.:

jenlynmc
New Member

Georgia

Total posts: 1
#5
of 6 E-mailing Paystub Problem
Feb 06, 2008 09:06 am
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This post is about: Premier QB 2008

Replying to: GregKo1 (Jan 31, 2008 4:23 pm)
I had this problem and spent 3 hours on the phone with QB support. Here is the solution that finally worked. Close QB. Go to Start and search for a file (use the advanced options to include hidden files) named QBPrint.qbp. When you find the file, right click to rename and simply type the word Old to name it OldQBPrint.qbp. This will keep it on there but will make QB look for and reload the file. Reopen QB--at this time it reloads the print file. Try the email pr stub again and it should work. This worked for me and I hope it works for you!
Replies to this message
bfurr1 (Feb 7, 2008 5:35 am)

Steve,
I am experiencing the very same thing as some of the other users. It seems to work correctly when a single email is sent or when I resend it from OUtloook. It worked fine in 2007. Why did you change it? This is a serious problem. The file sizes are well within the limits set by the ISP. This is not the issue. It only began happening when I upgraded to 2008.

I am having an issue with the invoices but I am sending them through the Quickbooks service and not Outlook. When a client gets the invoice there is a PDf attachment but the file size is 366 bytes. This is much too small for any PDF. They open the PDF and get an error that the file is corrupt and/or unreadable.

This is also happening with payment reminders which are automatically sent out via Intuit.

Windows XP Pro SP2 and Quickbooks 2008 Pro

Attached is an invoice from one of my friends who is having the exact same issue!! This invoice is from payment reminder email and not the initial invoice email.

I find the same problem. A little more info that I didn't see posted...

If I send a batch, some users complain that they can't open, so I go into my sent items and simply resend. The email is there and in PDF format and has opened for every user I've tried.

Vista Ultimate
Office 2003
Host our own email using SBS 2003

Hey,

I'm having the same issue as the rest of the posts here. Just thought I would add my voice to the mix. Maybe Intuit will respond if enough people indicate that this is a real problem. We are talking about generating invoices!

We opened a support call with Quickbooks. Not a lot of help. At first they said that no one else had reported a similar problem and they were sure it wasn't anything having to do with QB. They wanted us to call them the minute it was happening so they could diagnose it more. We explained that it wasn't happening to us but was something that was reported by our customers.

We've sent then a bunch of emails that we got back from our clients indicating that they either received a DAT file or received an email with no attachment. I'm thinking that the no attachment issue is from clients who have a AV engine that strips unknown or potentially harmful attachments (the DAT files).

So, no real update on this but wanted to share what we had done so far.

I tried the fix mentioned in this string and it did not work. I just spoke with technical support, they admitted it was an issue adn there is no fix for it right now.

Great I spent money to upgrade to 2008 and it doesn't work.

The .dat file change format has to do with Outlook itself. If the person receiving your email does not use Outlook for their email, then the file converts to an unusable .dat format. The only fix for the problem is to use another program such as Thunderbird to send your document.