<blockquote>Thanks, that makes sense. The sending client is a 3G cellular router (sends me reports on various events), and now I've sent the manufacturers a query about this problem. I'm guessing that when/if the message has a  Date: field in the header then the discrepancies I'm seeing in different folders will likely just go away.</blockquote><p>The Date: field is a required field in a message and the mail client is supposed to generate it.  If the server being used by the sending system is a Mail Submission Agent (MSA) many times the server will add this field. You might try using a different SMTP host setting in the router. </p> <h3 id="siteSub"><i>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</i></h3><p>A <b>mail submission agent</b> (<b>MSA</b>) is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_program" title="Computer program">computer program</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_agent" title="Software agent">software agent</a> that receives <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_mail" title="Electronic mail" class="mw-redirect">electronic mail</a> messages from a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_user_agent" title="Mail user agent" class="mw-redirect">mail user agent</a> (MUA) and cooperates with a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_transfer_agent" title="Mail transfer agent" class="mw-redirect">mail transfer agent</a> (MTA) for delivery of the mail. It uses a variant of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Mail_Transfer_Protocol" title="Simple Mail Transfer Protocol">Simple Mail Transfer Protocol</a> (SMTP), as specified in <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4409" class="external mw-magiclink-rfc">RFC 4409</a>.</p> <p>Many MTAs act as an MSA as well, but there are also programs that are specially designed as MSAs without full MTA functionality. Historically in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_mail" title="Internet mail" class="mw-redirect">Internet mail</a>, both MTA (acceptance of locally-destined mail from other domains) and MSA (acceptance of submitted mail from local users) functions were both performed by MTAs using the same protocol (SMTP).</p> <p>Separation of the MTA and MSA function produces several benefits:</p> <p>One benefit is that an MSA, since it is interacting directly with the author's MUA, can correct minor errors in a message's format (such as a missing <i>Date</i>, <i>Message-ID</i>, <i>To</i> fields, or an address with a missing domain name) and/or immediately report an error to the author so that it can be corrected before it is sent to any of the recipients. An MTA accepting a message from another site cannot reliably make those kinds of corrections, and any error reports generated by such an MTA will reach the author (if at all) only after he has already sent the message.</p><p> </p>

<p>Hi,</p> <p>I'm having a problem with email messages received from a certain source...</p> <p>- They don't display the "Time sent:" portion of the header I typically see with other messages.</p> <p>- In the folder they are mail filtered into they always show 3 Mar 10, 11:00  in the Date/Time column.</p> <p>- If copied into another folder they always show 3 Jan 10, 11:00  in the Date/Time column.</p> <p>I'm thinking it might be something unusual in the structure of the header causing the problem but see example below - the actual time and date shown is correct. Here's a raw view of the header of an offending message, and hints or suggestions appreciated:</p> <p><font size="4">Received: (qmail 32152 invoked from network); 18 Mar 2010 09:08:25 +1300</font></p><font size="4"> <p align="left">Received: from unknown (HELO localhost) (203.36.93.176)</p> <p align="left">by aoraki.webbase.net.nz with SMTP; 18 Mar 2010 09:08:25 +1300</p> <p align="left">From: Primal <primal@***.net></p> <p align="left">To: Admin <admin@***.net></p> <p align="left">Subject: Primal - Packet session - Connected</p> <p align="left">X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAhNVoN8TVpIx</p> <p align="left">X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAA==</p> <p align="left">X-PMFLAGS: 33574912 0 1 PKRNJ4YB.CNM </p></font><font size="3"></font><font size="4"> </font>

<p>There is no Date: header from the sending client, only the Received: headers with timestamps, added by the SMTP servers it has passed through.</p><p>These can not be used to determine the 'sent' date of a message. </p><p>As for why you get different 'dates' reported in different folders, I have no idea. </p>

Thanks, that makes sense. The sending client is a 3G cellular router (sends me reports on various events), and now I've sent the manufacturers a query about this problem. I'm guessing that when/if the message has a  Date: field in the header then the discrepanices I'm seeing in different folders will likely just go away.