Fixing Garbled Listserv Messages

Owned by
Mike Grosshandler
Last updated: Nov 08, 2023
1 min read

Issue

If subscribers on your Listserv list are receiving messages that come through garbled with weird codes/formatting, a likely cause is the "Default-Options" setting on your list. Default-Options determines what new subscribers to your list get as subscription settings on your list.

Resolution

If your list is configured with the following:

Default-Options= Repro,Shorthdr,NoMIME

Then you should change that to:

Default-Options= Repro,Fullhdr,MIME

This will fix the issue for new subscribers. To fix the setting for all of your existing subscribers, you will need to log in to the Listserv web interface and run the following command:

quiet set LISTNAME full mime for *@*

Replace "LISTNAME" with your actual list name.  For example, if your list is called ABC123-L, then your command would be:

quiet set ABC123-L full mime for *@*

To run the command, once logged in to the Listserv web interface:

  1. On the left side menu, click LISTSERV Command:

  2. Then enter the command and click Submit: