mail tool ignores body text from stdin if attachment is added

[Alexander Fieroch]

This is working:

echo "test - you should see this in mail body!" | mail -s "mail without attachment test" <email address hidden>

If I add an attachment the body is always empty:

echo "test - you should see this in mail body!" | mail --content-filename="file.txt" --content-type="text/plain" --attach="/path/to/file/file.txt" -s "mail attachment test" <email address hidden>

I found an old bug for debian already reporting this but it should be fixed in
mailutils (1:3.5-3) unstable; urgency=medium
 .
   * Cherry-pick patch from upstream git to avoid discarding stdin when
     mail is used to send email with attachments (closes: #918806).

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=918806

So this looks like a regression.

The workaround from the debian bug report above using command option --mime is not working and still sending an empty mail body:

echo "test - you should see this in mail body!" | mail --mime --content-filename="file.txt" --attach="/path/to/file/file.txt" -s "mail attachment test" <email address hidden>

I recognized the bug in Ubuntu 20.04
 mailutils 1:3.7-2.1

and in current Ubuntu 20.10 with
 mailutils 1:3.9-3.2

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: mailutils 1:3.7-2.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-56.62-generic 5.4.73
Uname: Linux 5.4.0-56-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.14
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
Date: Fri Jan 15 11:05:17 2021
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: mailutils
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to focal on 2020-05-22 (237 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[David Gräfrath (graefrath)]

I have the exact same issue after upgrading from xenial to bionic. I have a script that does this:

mail --attach "$log_file" --subject "$subject" "$recipient" < "$body_file"

It was working on xenial. After upgrading to bionic, I get a mail with the attached file and an empty body.

[writer (onino)]

I have the same problem with the difference that the mail body is added as an attachment too.
This only happens if using mail with attachments as descriped above.

I think this problem is solved from mail --version 3.9-7 upwards and related to this debian bug

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=940249

which refers to https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/mailutils.git/commit/?id=3a15565050

From my point of view, this is an important bug, because an email with text and attachments are quiet common and Ubuntu 20.04 is a LTS version.

Information and other users having the same problem refer to

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1332777/mail-mime-version-and-content-type-not-setting-header-mail-behavior-different

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/68470553/behavior-of-sending-email-with-text-and-body-changed-in-ubuntu-20-04-for-mail-fr?noredirect=1#comment121019249_68470553

[writer (onino)]

It seems bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mailutils/+bug/1838461 is related to this one too?!