Generating PDF, error with IE and HTTPS

Question

I am streaming a PDF to the browser in ASP.NET 2.0. This works in all browsers over HTTP and all browsers except IE over HTTPS. As far as I know, this used to work (o

Answer 1

We have faced a similar problem long time back - what we did was we (this is Java EE). In the web application config we add

<mime-mapping>
    <extension>PDF</extension>
    <mime-type>application/octet-stream</mime-type>
</mime-mapping>

This will make any pdf coming from your web application to be downloaded instead of the browser trying to render.

EDIT: looks like you are streaming it. In that case you will use a mime-type as application/octet-stream in your code and not in the config. So here instead of

Response.ContentType = "application/pdf"

you will use

Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream"

Answer 2

try to disable gzip compression.

Answer 3

I found that this seemed to work for me:

Dim browser As System.Web.HttpBrowserCapabilities = Request.Browser
If (browser.Browser = "IE") Then
  Response.AppendHeader("cache-control", "private") ' ie only
Else
  Response.AppendHeader("cache-control", "no-cache") ' all others (FF/Chrome tested)
End If

Answer 4

I read of your Cache-control goose chase, but I'll share mine, that met my needs, in case it helps.

Answer 5

I had a similar problem with PDF files I wanted to stream. Even with Response.ClearHeaders() I saw Pragma and Cache-Control headers added at runtime. The solution was to clear the headers in IIS (Right-click -> Properties on the page loading the PDF, then "Http headers" tab).

Answer 6

Like the OP I was scratching my head for days trying to get this to work, but I did it in the end so I thought I'd share my 'combination' of headers:

            if (System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Request.Browser.Browser == "InternetExplorer"
                && System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Request.Browser.Version == "8.0")
            {
                System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Clear();
                System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.ClearContent();
                System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.ClearHeaders();
                System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream";

                System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.AppendHeader("Pragma", "public");
                System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "private, max-age=60");
                System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.AppendHeader("Content-Transfer-Encoding", "binary");

                System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment; filename=" + document.Filename);
                System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("content-length", document.Data.LongLength.ToString());

                System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.BinaryWrite(document.Data);
            }

Hope that saves someone somewhere some pain!