http headers - PHP script to download file not working in IE

Question

I have a script that takes a key from $_GET['key'] , looks up the location in a database and uses the readfile together with some headers to present a download for the use. This works in Firefox but not IE8, haven't been able to test it on another IE. I get the following error in IE: "Internet Explorer cannot download download.php from www.example.com". As if it is trying to download the PHP script.

$the_query = "SELECT * FROM `files` WHERE `user_id`=" . $_SESSION['user_id'] . " AND `key`='" . $key . "'";

$result = mysql_query($the_query);
$row = mysql_fetch_array($result);

$file = '/var/www/vhosts/www.example.com/httpsdocs/uploads/' . $row['id'] . '/' . $row['file'];

header("Content-type: application/octet-stream");
header("Content-length: ".filesize($file));
header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
header("Cache-control: private");
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=' . rawurlencode(basename($file)));
readfile($file);

Answer 1

To solve the error : "Internet Explorer cannot download download.php from www.example.com", Add these headers to your script:

header("Pragma: ");

header("Cache-Control: ");

The code will remove the Cache-Control from headers which makes the download problem.

The above code should be added at the top of the file.

It works fine for us.