Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player cause double send_file downloads?

Hi,

Our Rails application allows WAV file downloads. The user clicks on a link, or clicks a button, and the WAV file gets sent as a response, using send_file.

It looks like IE is discarding the initial WAV file and passing the URL to Windows Media Player. Windows Media Player then re-requests the file!!

In addition to the performance problems, this design problem causes failures in the case of the download being initiated from a POST, since the re-request from the Media Player is only a GET, not a POST.

How do I prevent this re-request?

Thanks, David

dtrusty@my-deja.com wrote:

Hi,

Our Rails application allows WAV file downloads. The user clicks on a link, or clicks a button, and the WAV file gets sent as a response, using send_file.

It looks like IE is discarding the initial WAV file and passing the URL to Windows Media Player. Windows Media Player then re-requests the file!!

In addition to the performance problems, this design problem causes failures in the case of the download being initiated from a POST, since the re-request from the Media Player is only a GET, not a POST.

How do I prevent this re-request?   

I have found that the way that works for me (I use this for PNG) is to serve it up with the mime type 'application/unknown' so that IE does not try to interpret what program should handle the information coming down.

Cheers, Mohit. 10/5/2008 | 10:59 AM.

I tried setting the 'type' to 'application/unknown'.

The problem persists. The Windows Media Player re-requests the file, using an http GET request.

Any ideas?

Our Rails application allows WAV file downloads. The user clicks on a link, or clicks a button, and the WAV file gets sent as a response, using send_file.

It looks like IE is discarding the initial WAV file and passing the URL to Windows Media Player. Windows Media Player then re-requests the file!!

In addition to the performance problems, this design problem causes failures in the case of the download being initiated from a POST, since the re-request from the Media Player is only a GET, not a POST.

How do I prevent this re-request?

I don't think you can. Years ago a collegue had an issue with large PDF's being sent as a result of a POST. The PDFs that were under 1meg IE would download and then give that file to Adobe. Above 1meg and it would download some if it, then pass it to Adobe -- losing all the POST variables in the process.

The only solution we found was to convert that POST into a GET (or redirect it to a temp url that is a get). And suffer with the re-sending.

This was probably 6 years ago though... but sounds like it hasn't changed one bit.

Philip Hallstrom wrote:

Our Rails application allows WAV file downloads. The user clicks on a link, or clicks a button, and the WAV file gets sent as a response, using send_file.

It looks like IE is discarding the initial WAV file and passing the URL to Windows Media Player. Windows Media Player then re-requests the file!!

In addition to the performance problems, this design problem causes failures in the case of the download being initiated from a POST, since the re-request from the Media Player is only a GET, not a POST.

How do I prevent this re-request?      I don't think you can. Years ago a collegue had an issue with large PDF's being sent as a result of a POST. The PDFs that were under 1meg IE would download and then give that file to Adobe. Above 1meg and it would download some if it, then pass it to Adobe -- losing all the POST variables in the process.

The only solution we found was to convert that POST into a GET (or redirect it to a temp url that is a get). And suffer with the re- sending.

This was probably 6 years ago though... but sounds like it hasn't changed one bit.    I had a similar problem that a dynamically generated PNG was re-requested when a user right clicks and does a 'save' (both in FF and IE). There was a GET request triggered after the initial POST that generated the image.

We got around this by setting the mime type to application/unknown for the content. That way, IE and FF do not try to decode the content and do not try to 'support' it through plugins, external programs, etc. I think it just asks to save the file.

I think I replied this in an earlier mail. But, either way, hope this helps.

Cheers, Mohit. 10/7/2008 | 1:13 PM.

dtrusty@my-deja.com wrote: