Character limit on email subject line

[Guest Paul Alexander]

Hi

Could someone tell me whether there's a character limit on the email subject lines please?

thanks

[Deen]

@Paul Alexander The corresponding database field is a varchar(512) so I don't see how the email subject could exceed that.

[Guest Paul Alexander]

Hi @Deen

Thanks for that...the reason I'm asking is that SOME emails sent from Hornbill seem to have the subject line truncated (not all of them) - 

At the moment I can't see a pattern to it.

Different emails from the same request (one an update, the other a resolution, so they're slightly different template) seem to behave differently.

For instance, this email template SHOULD say (and DOES say in the template) 'has been updated' but is truncated:

 

 

Whereas this template has a summary of 'has been completed' (which has MORE characters) is NOT truncated:

 

 

I can't see why this is happening....any ideas please?

 

 

[Gerry]

@Paul Alexander

The answer is a little more complicated than that.  The subject field is stored (as is all of our data) in UTF-8 so the maximum allowed length of text (that you see on a screen) may well be less than that number, it actually depends on what the text is. 

cat - will store three bytes into the 512 byte field, where as 学中文 will store 9 characters into the 512 byte field. 

Gerry

[Gerry]

@Paul Alexander

Those screens are showing the emails in Outlook?  If you go to the sent items in the Hornbill mailbox where those messages originated, and look at the same messages in the sent items folder - is the subject truncated in there? That will tell you where the problem is, it could be the mail server/email transport, or it could be something weird in the email template expansion on Hornbill. Whats in the sent items folder will tell us which.

Gerry

[Guest Paul Alexander]

Hi @Gerry

This is the email I see in the Hornbill Sent Items box - so yes, it looks like a problem either with Outlook or with the handover to Outlook. 

Very weird that it's not ALL emails though....

 

 

[Gerry]

@Paul Alexander

So I am pretty much 100% (well I need to check something) that delivery of the message on our side will not truncate the subject field, so I assume it has to be on the receiving side.   What is odd is, neither email subject seems excessively long to me... its a bit strange. 

Gerry

[Guest Paul Alexander]

I have plenty of other emails in my inbox from Hornbill AND other senders where the subject line is much longer, so it's not making much sense to me! 

The only ones that I can see which HAVE been truncated do all seem to have from from Hornbill, (hence the post!)