PHP script to download file not working in IE

Question

I have a script that takes a key from $_GET[\'key\'] , looks up the location in a database and uses the readfile together with some headers to present a download for the use

Answer 1

Never replace this: header("Content-type: application/octet-stream");

with this: header("Content-Type: application/force-download");

"application/octet-stream" is simply the most universal and works on most browsers.

I tried using "application/zip" in one of my tests since I was technically dealing with a ZIP file, but IE6.0 corrupted the download! Everything else behaved normally though. But yeah, had to switch back to "application/octet-stream" so any code out there that tries to detect the file extension, and switch to other content-types specific to the extension are risky! You're better off using "application/octet-stream" for ALL binary files!

Answer 2

To solve the error : "Internet Explorer cannot download download.php from www.example.com", Add these headers to your script:

header("Pragma: ");

header("Cache-Control: ");

The code will remove the Cache-Control from headers which makes the download problem.

The above code should be added at the top of the file.

It works fine for us.

Answer 3

Just a hint, if someone (like me) is facing problems with directly entering a filedownload into the address bar using a secured https-request. There is a IE bug that is causing this download to fail:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323308/en-us

Only workaround seems to be setting the cache-headers according to the article.

Answer 4

Replace this:
header("Content-type: application/octet-stream");
with this:
header("Content-Type: application/force-download");

According to this post, IE doesn't normally listen to your headers, and instead looks for itself what you are sending.

Answer 5

Managed to get this working by using the first example from php.net

http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.readfile.php

header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='.basename($file));
header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
header('Expires: 0');
header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
header('Pragma: public');
header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($file));
ob_clean();
flush();
readfile($file);
exit;