You are using Symantec Premium Antispam with Language Identification enabled and the subject of some messages are appearing as question marks when the message is viewed in Outlook.

Conditions

• Message contains a subject that specifies a character set encoding.

To check if the subject is Double Byte encoded:

1. Open the message in Outlook.
2. Open the Message Option.
3. At the bottom you will see Internet headers.
4. Within Internet headers you will the field Subject.
5. The Subject. field will start with =?utf-8?.
NOTE: The specific encoding may be different. There are many character set encodings.

To check if message body contains Double Byte Characters:

1. Open the message in Outlook.
2. The message body will contain Non-Ascii characters.

• Premium AntiSpam Features are being used.

• Language Identification is enabled.

To check Language Identification:

1. Open the Symantec Mail Security For Microsoft Exchange Console.
2. Go to Policies > Premium AntiSpam Settings.
3. "Enable Language Identification" will be checked.

• Exchange version 2003.

When the feature "Language Identification" is enabled, SMSMSE notifies Premium Antispam that this feature is enabled while submitting any mail message for spam scanning. After scanning of such a message, Premium Antispam returns the verdict "is- known-language" and then SMSMSE adds tracker strings in the message header. Because of these tracker strings and along with the Premium Antispam verdict "is- known-language", the subject gets altered and hence the question marks appear.

The Language identification feature is used in conjunction with the Symantec Outlook Plug-In. The Symantec Outlook Plug-In is only currently supported with Exchange 2000. Most organizations will not be using the Outlook Plug-In.

Workaround

Disable language identification feature:

1. Open the Symantec Mail Security For Microsoft Exchange Console.
2. Go to Policies > Premium AntiSpam Settings.
3. Uncheck "Enable Language Identification".
4. Click Deploy Changes.
5. On the Windows taskbar, click Start > Run.
6. In the Run dialog box, type the following text:
   
   services.msc
   
   
7. Click OK.
8. Right-click Symantec Mail Security Utility service, and then click Restart.

References
Language Identification Feature is not Present on Symantec Mail Security for Exchange (SMSMSE) When Installed on Exchange 2007 or Higher