1. Upload PDF to shared files module
2. Download in IE6 or IE7 by clicking the filename link.

IE attempts to download the link https://localhost/mojodev/Default.aspx?pageid=14 in my instance and fails. The download icon that uses SharedFilesDownload.aspx works just fine in IE, Firefox, and Netscape.

Note that PDF downloads from the shared file module work fine in Firefox 2.0 and Netscape 7.2.

Digging deeper into this problem I came across an interesting MS article support.microsoft.com/kb/323308 . In summary the article states that IE has a problem when opening files over SSL with no caching in the http header. They recommend editing the registry on the client side or installing a hotfix. This seems like a poor solution for mojoportal. We need to do something on the server side...perhaps enabling cache for the download only?

Cool, that's works. However the SharedFilesDownload page allows caching. After a bit of tedious research and googling I found that the following code disables caching in IE, Firefox, and Netscape while allowing IE to download files over SSL:

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// Set expiration to prevent IE from caching page when user hits back button HttpContext.Current.Response.Cache.SetExpires(DateTime.UtcNow.AddYears(-1));

// no-store makes firefox reload page
// no-cache makes firefox reload page only over SSL
// IE will fail when downloading a file over SSL if no-store or no-cache is set
HttpContext.Current.Response.Cache.SetNoStore();
//HttpContext.Current.Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.NoCache);

// private cache allows IE to download over SSL with no-store set. HttpContext.Current.Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.Private);
HttpContext.Current.Response.Cache.SetRevalidation(HttpCacheRevalidation.AllCaches); HttpContext.Current.Response.Cache.AppendCacheExtension("post-check=0,pre-check=0");
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Why browsers don't adhere to RFC's continues to baffle me!

-Jesse