Internet Explorer wants to download the JSON result from posting files

[jennings]

When uploading a file with Internet Explorer 9, the browser asks the user whether to open or save the JSON result. Consequently, the user gets a confusing dialog box and the indicators of the upload status never change away from "uploading" and the spinning throbber.

1. Open http://dbinbox.com/whatever in IE 9
2. Use Choose File to upload any non-empty file
3. When the file finishes uploading, the user is asked to open or save a file with a nonsense filename that contains JSON data.

[jennings]

I'm not sure what the cause of this is, but I'll try to find out and update this issue.

[christiangenco]

Hmmm, not sure why that would be. I'm using jQuery's $.post to handle the AJAX request, if it helps you track it down!

Unfortunately, I don't have a windows box running IE9 I can test this on.

[jennings]

I think this is an issue with IE and its interaction with jQuery File Upload. They have issue blueimp/jQuery-File-Upload#1795 for this.

It looks like the solution is to return "text/plain" if HTTP_ACCEPT doesn't inclue application/json.

[jennings]

I don't have a way to test it because I don't have a Ruby dev environment, but I think the changes I pushed to my ie9-content-type branch might do it. I've never used Sinatra (or really even Ruby) before, though, so truly I have no idea if this will work.

[christiangenco]

I couldn't get request.accept? working in Chrome or Safari, so I'm just checking the user agent string for Internet Explorer 6-9:

content_type (request.user_agent.index(/MSIE [6-9]/) ? 'text/plain' : :json)

Did that fix it?

Side note: I find it hilarious that we're able to fix bugs in a Sinatra project serving files to IE when you can't run Ruby and I can't run IE.

[jennings]

Hooray! It seems to work now. Thanks!

Yeah, I also though it was funny we both are missing something in our environments (in my case, pretty much the entire thing). I feel like I'm in the movie See No Evil, Hear No Evil.

[christiangenco]

Haha, yes!

If you get a chance, I'd highly recommend giving Ruby a try. As with most linux-centric development environments, it's not quite as smooth on Windows as it is on a Unix system, but it's still super awesome.

[vsapram]

after adding this line
response.setContentType("text/plain");
It is working with jetty server.
But in tomcat still it is showing the error?
Please suggest some thing for this. Thks in advance.

[christiangenco]

@vsapram I've got no idea, I'm afraid :( I've never used tomcat.

Is there a compelling reason why you can't use jetty?

[MikeInSwitzerland]

Annoyingly, Internet Explorer doesn't automatically open .json files.

The solution is to run a simple .reg file on your PC, to make it behave normally:

http://www.mikesknowledgebase.com/SampleCode/MakeIEshowJSONdata.zip

You'll need Admin rights to run this .reg file.