Environment
- osTicket Version: 1.18.2
- PHP Version: 8.3.6
- Mail Fetching Method: IMAP
- Server OS: Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS
Issue Description
Email messages sent with S/MIME signatures/encryption or OpenPGP signatures/encryption are not being parsed correctly by osTicket. The ticket body appears empty.
Root Cause Analysis
After investigation, I found that this issue is related to osTicket's dependency on laminas-mail library, which:
- Was officially abandoned in December 2023 by the Laminas Technical Steering Committee
- Does not properly handle modern email security formats like S/MIME and OpenPGP
- Fails to extract content from signed/encrypted message parts
Reproduction Steps
- Send an email to osTicket from an email client with S/MIME signature enabled (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.)
- Or send a PGP-signed email from a client like Thunderbird with Enigmail
- Check the created ticket - the body will be empty
Expected Behavior
The ticket should contain the readable message content, with appropriate handling of the signature/encryption metadata.
Business Impact
This affects organizations that:
- Use email signatures for security compliance
- Require encrypted email communication
- Have policies mandating S/MIME or PGP
- Work in regulated industries (healthcare, finance, government)
Suggested Long-term Solution
Replace laminas-mail with actively maintained alternatives:
symfony/mailer + symfony/mime for robust MIME handlingzbateson/mail-mime-parser for parsingddeboer/imap for IMAP operations
Add native S/MIME/OpenPGP support to osTicket core
Community Impact
This issue likely affects many users who may not realize why their ticket content is missing. A search shows similar reports in various support channels.
Request for Maintainers
- Acknowledge this as a known issue in the documentation
- Consider accepting community patches for this functionality
- Plan migration away from abandoned laminas-mail in future versions
- Add S/MIME/OpenPGP to the roadmap as a feature request
Tags: email-parsing, s-mime, openpgp, laminas-mail, security, bug-report
