PM10072: UNESCAPED EQUAL SIGN FOR EXCEL RESULTS IN VIRUS WARNING

APAR status

• Closed as program error.

Error description

• Creating report in Report Studio and saving it in Excel format
  will have code in the Excel file containing <span
  style=mso-spacerun:yes>&nbsp;</span> (this is for formatting
  purposes), an unescaped equals sign (=) is in it which is not
  valid in Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable.
  
  Any 8-bit byte value may be encoded with 3 characters, an =
  followed by two hexadecimal digits (0-9 or A-F) representing the
  bytes numeric value. All characters except printable ASCII
  characters, or end of line characters must be encoded in this
  fashion.
  
  There are some email systems which will detect this and
  encounter an error. Some email systems will re-encode the email
  as a natural process and will not encounter an error.
  
  Example: A clients mail systems virus scanner flags the message
  as not scannable (doesnt scan the email properly) and continues
  to send the email to the recipient along with a warning email.
  This happens on the clients system because the email has a MIME
  error due to the unescaped equal sign (=) in the attachment,
  which has so far demonstrated to only happening in this segment
  of code: <span style=mso-spacerun:yes>&nbsp;</span>.
  
  As for the warning message the recipient receives, here is an
  example:
  WARNING!!! (from md3.nss.udel.edu)
  The following message attachments were flagged by the antivirus
  scanner:
  Attachment [2.2] xx.zip, scan failed: Scan error (229): Invalid
  MIME header found..  Action taken: incomplete scan
  

Local fix

Problem summary

• ****************************************************************
  * USERS AFFECTED:                                              *
  * All Users                                                    *
  ****************************************************************
  * PROBLEM DESCRIPTION:                                         *
  * See error description.                                       *
  ****************************************************************
  * RECOMMENDATION:                                              *
  * Upgrade to IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence 8.4.1 FP2      *
  ****************************************************************
  

Problem conclusion

• Code Fix
  

Temporary fix

Comments

APAR Information

• APAR is sysrouted FROM one or more of the following:

• APAR is sysrouted TO one or more of the following:

Fix information

• Fixed component name

  COG8 BI COG CON

• Fixed component ID

  5724W12CC

Applicable component levels

• R841 PSN

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