PHP file download error in Internet Explorer 7
October 9th, 2008 by Anthony Curreri
When trying to download a file that is auto-generated on the fly by a PHP script I wrote that sends excel headers, Internet Explorer users were getting the error:
Windows Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer cannot download [filename] from [website].
Internet Explorer was not able to open this Internet site. The requested site is either unavailable or cannot be found. Please try again later.
This is caused by doing a session_start(). If you don’t actually need a the session in your php file you can remove it, and IE users will be able to download whatever your PHP script is making. The problem is session_start() by default sends a cache control header including “no-store”. Internet Explorer has a bug with sending a cache header.
If you need the session, then before session_start(), add “session_cache_limiter(’none’);”
Problem solved!
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