On IE CSS font-face works only when navigating through inner links

Question

Our webdesigner has created a CSS with the following font-face:

@font-face {
    font-family: \'oxygenregular\';
    src: url(\'oxygen-regular-webfont.eot\')         


        

Answer 1

I found a solution but I cannot see the reason why it works (well, only one reason - it's IE :D).

What I did was to put the same site on Apache and test again. On Apache the fonts worked fine even when using Refresh button. Then in the network inspector I saw that Apache is returning 304 instead of 200 for the eot file and it hit me - so it's caching issue. I went to my ASP.NET app and sure enough - for security reasons (and also to avoid caching AJAX requests) someone had disabled every caching you could imagine:

        // prevent caching for security reasons
        HttpContext.Current.Response.Cache.SetAllowResponseInBrowserHistory(false);
        HttpContext.Current.Response.Cache.SetExpires(DateTime.UtcNow.AddDays(-1));
        HttpContext.Current.Response.Cache.SetValidUntilExpires(false);
        HttpContext.Current.Response.Cache.SetRevalidation(HttpCacheRevalidation.AllCaches);
        HttpContext.Current.Response.Cache.SetNoServerCaching();

        // do not use any of the following two - they break CSS fonts on IE
        HttpContext.Current.Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.NoCache);
        HttpContext.Current.Response.Cache.SetNoStore();

As soon as I commented out the last two lines of code, suddenly fonts started to work without problems on IE. So I guess the answer is: IE cannot load the font if it is not cached. I have no idea why the problem happens only when refreshing/navigating back, though.

Edit - Alternative solution

Instead of commenting those last two lines

    // do not use any of the following two - they break CSS fonts on IE
    HttpContext.Current.Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.NoCache);
    HttpContext.Current.Response.Cache.SetNoStore();

Change the SetAllowResponseInBrowserHistory to true instead:

HttpContext.Current.Response.Cache.SetAllowResponseInBrowserHistory(true);

This should still allow no-cache with the exception of back and forward navigation as I understand it. MSDN - SetAllowResponseInBrowserHistory Method