diff --git a/mozilla/mailnews/local/src/nsMailboxProtocol.cpp b/mozilla/mailnews/local/src/nsMailboxProtocol.cpp
index 04d863b1397..7bae32bd539 100644
--- a/mozilla/mailnews/local/src/nsMailboxProtocol.cpp
+++ b/mozilla/mailnews/local/src/nsMailboxProtocol.cpp
@@ -243,7 +243,7 @@ nsresult nsMailboxProtocol::LoadUrl(nsIURL * aURL, nsISupports * aConsumer)
 					// create a temp file to write the message into. We need to do this because
 					// we don't have pluggable converters yet. We want to let mkfile do the work of 
 					// converting the message from RFC-822 to HTML before displaying it...
-				
+					ClearFlag(MAILBOX_MSG_PARSE_FIRST_LINE);
 					m_tempMessageFile->openStreamForWriting();
 					SetupMessageExtraction();
 					m_nextState = MAILBOX_READ_MESSAGE;
@@ -336,14 +336,18 @@ PRInt32 nsMailboxProtocol::ReadMessageResponse(nsIInputStream * inputStream, PRU
 					the local system will convert that to the local line
 					terminator as it is read.
 				*/
-
-				if (m_tempMessageFile)
+				// mscott - the firstline hack is aimed at making sure we don't write
+				// out the dummy header when we are trying to display the message.
+				// The dummy header is the From line with the date tag on it.
+				if (m_tempMessageFile && TestFlag(MAILBOX_MSG_PARSE_FIRST_LINE))
 				{
 					PRInt32 count = 0;
 					if (line)
 						m_tempMessageFile->write(line, PL_strlen(line), &count);
 					m_tempMessageFile->write(MSG_LINEBREAK, MSG_LINEBREAK_LEN, &count);
 				}
+				else
+					SetFlag(MAILBOX_MSG_PARSE_FIRST_LINE);
 			} 
 		}
 		while (line && !pauseForMoreData);
diff --git a/mozilla/mailnews/local/src/nsMailboxProtocol.h b/mozilla/mailnews/local/src/nsMailboxProtocol.h
index 0f9d8a33956..8f432070018 100644
--- a/mozilla/mailnews/local/src/nsMailboxProtocol.h
+++ b/mozilla/mailnews/local/src/nsMailboxProtocol.h
@@ -47,6 +47,7 @@
 // commands, etc. I do not intend it to refer to protocol state)
 
 #define MAILBOX_PAUSE_FOR_READ			0x00000001  /* should we pause for the next read */
+#define MAILBOX_MSG_PARSE_FIRST_LINE    0x00000002 /* have we read in the first line of the msg */
 
 /* states of the machine
  */