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Quoted-Printable Subject-Line Improperly Terminated When Containing a Medial Question Mark ('?')

A customer reported receiving garbled subject line. An "n" dash (U+2013) caused the subject-line to be converted to Quoted Printable, but the natural "?" interrogative subject-line corrupted it.

Description

A customer reported that email subject lines were displayed with corrupted or unreadable characters. The issue occurred when the subject contained an en dash (U+2013), which triggered Quoted-Printable encoding. The presence of a question mark (?) in the same subject line subsequently caused the encoded text to be misinterpreted, resulting in a garbled subject line for recipients.

Steps to Replicate

  1. Log in to Blackboard Learn as an Administrator or Instructor

  2. Navigate to a course and open the Course Messages tool

  3. Create a new message with a subject containing both special character (for example, an dash "–") and a question mark "?" Example subject: "In Your First 1 – 2 Years of Teaching? Help Shape the Support You Wish You Had"

  4. Send the message to one or more recipients

  5. Receive the email notification and inspect the email subject line

Observed Behavior:

The email subject is displayed incorrectly or becomes truncated.

Expected Behavior:

The full subject line displays correctly, including the special character and question mark.

Affected Versions

  • Learn 4000.12.0

  • Learn 4000.15.0

Target Release

Future Reference

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