MimeMessage.reply() issue with MS Exchange Server 2007 Emails

Question

I have an application that retrieves emails from an MS Exchange Server 2003 mailbox. The data from each message is read, validated and conditionally loaded to a table. If the message doesn't pass validation, a rejection email is sent back to the sender with an error message and a copy of the email. (We're using Java 1.5. However, I test with both 1.5 and 1.6.)
Also, if the message passes validation, positive notification is sent back to the sender.
Both processes use the method: javax.mail.Message.reply()It's coded as:
MimeMessage reply = (MimeMessage) message.reply(false);My organization is in the process of migrating to MS Exchange Server 2007. We've found that the reply() method no longer finds the sender method, thus unable to create a reply message. The error message we receive is:
javax.mail.SendFailedException: No recipient addresses
     at javax.mail.Transport.send0(Transport.java:110)
     at javax.mail.Transport.send(Transport.java:80)
     at org.ccci.gms.datacollector.DataCollector.sendReply(DataCollector.java:514)
     at org.ccci.gms.datacollector.DataCollector.processMessages(DataCollector.java:162)
     at org.ccci.gms.datacollector.DataCollector.main(DataCollector.java:101)After creating the MimeMessage object from the reply() method, I printed out the email header detail from both 2003 and 2007 messages. You'll note from below that the "To" or recipient address is missing from Server 2007.
MS Exchange 2003 works fine
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Report
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>MS Exchange 2007 no longer works
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Reports
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>I know I could just use the "addRecipient()" method to get around this problem. I wanted to know if anyone has encountered this issue. Please share the resolution. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
LaelW

Answer 1

When the original message is accessed using IMAP, the reply method uses the information in the
IMAP ENVELOPE to determine where to send the reply. It first looks for the Reply-To address
in the ENVELOPE, then the From address.
Interestingly, when not using IMAP, the getFrom method returns the Sender header if the From
header is empty. The IMAP-specific code doesn't do that, although perhaps it should.
It would be interesting to compare the ENVELOPE data from the protocol trace in the two cases.
The ENVELOPE data will follow this syntax:
envelope     = "(" env-date SP env-subject SP env-from SP
          env-sender SP env-reply-to SP env-to SP env-cc SP
          env-bcc SP env-in-reply-to SP env-message-id ")"
So it's the first three address fields after the Subject that are relevant. If the From and Reply-To
fields are NIL, but the Sender field has a valid address, let me know. I should probably fix the
IMAP provider to fall back to the Sender field if the From field is missing.