Internet Explorer 5 Header Problems

[Anon]

I have come accross a funny bug on Internet Explorer 5 and can't seem to get round it.

Basically I have a php script which displays a form via Fast Templating. The user fills in the form and submits it. The action is set to the same php script. The script recognises that data is being submitted from the form and instead of displaying the template again, writes to a database, sends an alert e-mail and then redirects to another html page with a thanks message.

The problem is that it sends the email twice and writes to the database twice.

I 'think' it's not a programming thing, as:

1) Netscape and Explorer 4 are fine.
2) I only have one database write and mail command in the entire script, which are followed by a header location and an exit.
3) It's not looping, as the display code occurs after the database write and I have an 'exit()' in place.

I have other forms with a similiar structure and have no problems with them, but consistently have this problem with one form and only on Explorer 5.

Anyone got any solutions or had similiar problems?

Cheers

M@

---

mail$mailTo2,$mailSubject,$mailBody,$mailHeaders);
header("Location: /thanks.html");

exit;

[Anon]

Hi!

I have a bit of a samekind of problem. I am generating some pdf docs by a pdf scripts. With netscape everything goes just fine, but when IE 5 or IE 5.5 the browser seems not to know how to handle the created documents. It tries to open acroread and then it returns a blank web page!

there was a header like this in the php script:

header("Content-type: application/pdf");

if I modify it look like this:
header("Content-type: application/pdf");
header( "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=test_doc.pdf" );

The script works allmost ok with IE!! Only that it allways asks twice if I want to save the file or open it in current location.

So there is a bug in IE 5.X?

[Anon]

I'm still having problems with this a month later. Maybe it just is a bug with IE5.x (shocksurprisenot) as using different browsers alleviates the problem.

If anyone ever solves this, or has more information, can they let me know.

Much appreciated.

Matt :-)

[hson-lson]

This solution is working for me (only tested it on Mac with IE 5.0):

if the script normaly is called like this:
www.foo.bar/download.php?id=3&type=pdf

try calling it like this instead:
www.foo.bar/download.php/foo.pdf?id=3&type=pdf

the slash after download.php seems to fool IE to name the file foo.pdf (or whatever you name it).

In combination with the usual headers:
Header("Content-type: application/pdf; name=foo.pdf");
Header("Content-disposition: attachment; filename=foo.pdf");

Good luck!

/Lson

[Anon]

Hi, I also had some troubles when managing PDF files.

Let me tell you that I'm not a PHP programmer (yet!), but I think that the LOGIC is more important than the Language.

this is what I wanted:
1: The Browser must prompt the "save as" dialog when I clik on the "Download link"

2: The file must be viewed directly on the browser when I clik on the "view link"

The trick is as follows...

1. The IE doesn't care for the headers (content-type: xxx) It only cares for this header (content-disposition: attachment) because It manage the file acording with with the extension AND the SCRIPT URL. Netscape and others, in the other hand, they do need the complete headers. In a few words...

   if ($ENV{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /MSIE/)
   
   {
   $mHeader = "Content-Disposition: attachment;\n\n"; #--> This is the header for IE
   }
   else
   {
   $mHeader = "Content-type: application/octet-stream;\nContent-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"MyFile.pdf\"\n\n"; #--> And this one for Netscape and others
   }

after that you must create a script named exactly like the one you are trying to download (MyFile.pdf) and it must contain the code for printing the pdf file to the user. (Note that the script must have the same extension as the download file, in this case PDF, so, you must configure your WebServer to treat the PDF extension as a CGI Script)

and finally create the link like this:
<a href="//my_site.com/MyFile.pdf" target="new"> (Dont forget to include the TARGET="new" otherwise it will not work!!)

the reason is because IE takes the filename from the URL navigation bar ando that's also the reason why the CGI Script should be equal as the download file.

2. For the second example....
   this are the headers you need:
   if ($ENV{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /MSIE/)
   {
   $mHeader='Content-type: application/pdf
   Content-disposition: inline;

';
}
else
{
$mHeader='Content-type: application/pdf
Content-disposition: inline; filename="'.$mDirTmp.'/'.$mTmpNames.'.pdf"

';
}

In this case you can omit target="_new" on the link, IE should display the content of the file in the same window and Netscape opens another window to display the file.

That's IT!
Please excuse my english, it's not good, buy I tried to do my best 🙂

Any questions? Feel free to write to my e-mail [e-mail]

By the way the credit is not mine, a friend of mine gave me this solition, her name is Vanessa Jalíl [e-mail]

Write to her if somthing goes wrong!! just kidding.

Chears!

Valentin Ortiz Ferretiz.
Veracrúz, Mexico.

[Anon]

There is a known problem in IE 5.5 SP1 that is causes a problem with the Content-disposition: attachment header

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q279/6/67.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=download%20unknown%20file%20type&rnk=3&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_SRCH&SPR=IEP