Binary download going to browser window

tjeffries

I'm trying to set up a binary file download that opens the normal browser "save as" dialog box. Instead, the file is displayed as characters in the browser window. I have read the threads here that talk about setting the headers correctly for a binary download, and tried many different approaches, but nothing seems to help. I've also tried both readfile and fpassthru, both functions just dump the file to the screen.

Here is the latest version of the code, I would appreciate suggestions.

   $fp = fopen($file, "rb");

header("Pragma: public");
header("Expires: 0");
header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0");
header("Cache-Control: private",false);
header("Content-type: application/octet-stream");
header("Content-Type: application/force-download");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"$file\"");
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
header("Content-Length: ". filesize($file));
//readfile("$file");
fpassthru($fp);

NogDog

Try commenting out the "force-download" header. It's overwriting the preceding Content-Type header. (The second Cache-Control header is likewise overwriting the first one; if you want both, you need to set the optional 2nd parameter for header() to false.)

tjeffries

Thanks, but that's not it. In fact, I didn't have a "force-download" header until I saw that suggested in a thread here. I have not been able to find any variation of headers that works.

NogDog

Do you have full error-reporting turned on or have you checked your error logs? I'm just wondering if the header() calls are failing due to something causing output to be sent before they care called.

NogDog

PS: I've always used these header()'s with success:

header('Content-Length: '.$fileSize);
header('Content-Type: '.$mimeType);
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="'.$fileName.'"');
header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');

tjeffries

Thanks- that's a good idea. I'm not very familiar with the error logs, but I see some things in there that might help.

I see you use:

header('Content-Type: '.$mimeType);

Will that work with an executable file? Also, I see my syntax (taken from some working sample code) is different:

header("Content-type: application/octet-stream");

Any thoughts?

NogDog

I just copied and pasted that from some code I had, where it sets some variables for parts of those values. Just replace them with the actual values you want to use (or variable names you want to use). I think the Content-Disposition: Attachment and Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary headers are the main things that force a download instead of display, regardless of what content-type is specified.

NogDog

PS: For debugging purposes, you can add the following at the start of your script:

<?php
ini_set('display_errors', 1); // set to 0 for production version
error_reporting(E_ALL);

This will cause all errors to display on the resulting output (other than parse errors).