Visitor

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2 Messages

Sunday, October 26th, 2025 1:00 AM

Occasional Attachment Preview Error in Comcast Webmail (PDF and JPG)

I'm experiencing an intermittent issue with Comcast webmail when previewing attachments.

Most often, this occurs with PDF files: when I click to preview a PDF attachment (either before sending or after receiving), I sometimes get the error message:

"An error occurred while loading the document so it cannot be displayed. Please download the file using the button below."

The files are typically small (e.g., 120KB), open fine on my PC, and are standard PDFs. I tested this in both Edge and Firefox, and the error occurs in both browsers.

I also occasionally see this error with .jpg image attachments, though less frequently. For example, a 76KB JPEG previewed fine, but a larger 1.7MB photo showed inconsistent orientation before and after sending (landscape before, portrait after).

I could not reproduce the error today with a JPEG, but I’ve seen it enough times to know it’s not isolated.

Is this a known issue with Comcast’s preview engine? Are there recommended file formats, size limits, or encoding practices to avoid this error?

Thanks in advance for any guidance or insight.

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Accepted Solution

Expert

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33.1K Messages

2 months ago

@grb127 

I'm experiencing an intermittent issue with Comcast webmail when previewing attachments.

Most often, this occurs with PDF files: when I click to preview a PDF attachment (either before sending or after receiving), I sometimes get the error message:

"An error occurred while loading the document so it cannot be displayed. Please download the file using the button below."

The files are typically small (e.g., 120KB), open fine on my PC, and are standard PDFs. I tested this in both Edge and Firefox, and the error occurs in both browsers.

I also occasionally see this error with .jpg image attachments, though less frequently. For example, a 76KB JPEG previewed fine, but a larger 1.7MB photo showed inconsistent orientation before and after sending (landscape before, portrait after).

I could not reproduce the error today with a JPEG, but I’ve seen it enough times to know it’s not isolated.

Is this a known issue with Comcast’s preview engine? Are there recommended file formats, size limits, or encoding practices to avoid this error?

Thanks in advance for any guidance or insight.

This is a known issue and a ticket has been opened.  No ETA.

(edited)

Visitor

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1 Message

I am having the same problem with pdfs in Comcast email.

Visitor

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2 Messages

According to some expert, "This is a known issue and a ticket has been opened.  No ETA."

Accepted Solution

Official Employee

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337 Messages

2 months ago

Thanks for joining us in our community forums! Sorry that attachment previews have not been working properly! This is a known issue and there is not an estimated date for resolution at this time. Have you noticed any other problems when trying to access your emails?

Visitor

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1 Message

10 days ago

It's 12/10/25, and I am still having those same attachment issues with Comcast emails and have been for months. I was told today by an IT person, working on my desktop, that this was an ongoing issue with Xfinity email attachments. I don't quite understand why it is taking their engineers so long to resolve this issue??

Expert

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33.1K Messages

@user_iv43di

It's 12/10/25, and I am still having those same attachment issues with Comcast emails and have been for months. I was told today by an IT person, working on my desktop, that this was an ongoing issue with Xfinity email attachments. I don't quite understand why it is taking their engineers so long to resolve this issue??

Apparently it's a coding issue, which they finally had narrowed down, but I haven't heard an ETA on the fix, yet.

I am not a Comcast Employee.
I am a Customer Expert volunteering my time to help other customers here in the Forums.
We ask that you post publicly so people with similar questions may benefit from the conversation.

Was your question answered? Please mark an Accepted Answer!tick

Official Employee

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3.1K Messages

 

user_iv43di - Thanks so much for joining us in the community forums! We’re really sorry to hear that attachment previews haven’t been working properly—that can definitely be frustrating. As @Again (thank you for your contribution) mentioned; this is a known issue, and while we don’t have an estimated resolution date yet, we’re here to help however we can. Have you noticed any other issues when trying to access your emails? Your feedback can really help us understand the full picture.

 

I am an Official Xfinity Employee.
Official Employees are from multiple teams within Xfinity: CARE, Product, Leadership.
We ask that you post publicly so people with similar questions may benefit from the conversation.
Was your question answered? Please, mark a reply as the Accepted Answer.tick

Regular Visitor

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8 Messages

Why don't you just go back and look and see when all these emails started and figure out when you made the last update right before that date, and see what you changed in it. that will probably lead you right to the problem.

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