Emergency problem with downloadable products -- IE Windows

[gheffron]

While our downloadable products have been downloading fine from a number of computers for a month, we've run into problems with a number of recent machines which don't allow the download process at all. They're all running Internet Explorer for Windows.

Here's the way the error comes about:
1) order completes/customer clicks on "download"
2) a new window pops up -- doesn't ask whether open/save/etc (or where to save)
3) a standard file download window displays graphic of a piece of paper being passed between world and folder (note: file-download rate info is blank)
4) no changes for few minutes
5) a window pops up: "cannot download .php Internet Explorer is unable to open site. Request is unavailable or cannot be found"

Does anyone have a clue what's happening here? This is totally mysterious to me! The downloadable products are their flagship products, so the clients are really nervous about all this.

Best,
gheffron

[michael_s]

What happens if they wait a few minutes and try to download the file again?

What is the exact IE version being used. What is the OS? Mac or Windows?

What happens if the person then log into their account with a different browser like firefox, and tries to download? I am not suggesting this as a fix, just to get an idea of what the behavior is linked to.

It could be a temporary server issue. Sometimes, if php runs short of memory or the process takes to long to complete, it will die and try to download the php file instead of your actual download.

Or, it could be a browser compatibility issue.

[gheffron]

I believe all browsers are using the previous version of Internet Explorer (6?) for Windows.

I'll ask the clients to try retrying their downloads, but customers were reporting having the same thing happen three times in a row, so I'm not sure that it's a random server-delay issue.

I'll also ask them to try with a different browser and get back to you.

Best,
gheffron

[gheffron]

Correction: one of my clients also had the same download issue with Internet Explorer 7 (the newest version).

I'm still waiting to hear back about Firefox, etc.

[gheffron]

Well, Firefox works perfectly on Windows (along with every browser I've tested on a Mac -- IE, Mozilla, Netscape, Safari), but Internet Explorer 6 and 7 won't work on Windows. The problem, needless to say, is that they're the primary browsers in the world today. If they don't work, the system really isn't working.

In response to Michael's suggestions, I called the host and had him up the memory for PHP to 40+ megs. (My client's largest downloadable product is about 24MB, but even the small, 7MB PDFs aren't downloading.) I also had him extend the timeout time to 60 seconds instead of 30, but neither of these seemed to help the issue.

Any other geniuses out there? This is really a sticky problem.

Best,
gheffron

[michael_s]

Send me a url, I want to test it to see what the deal is. Also, check your server error logs and apache logs to see what is recorded when the problem occurs.

Downloads work fine for me with both IE6 and 7, so I don't think it is an issue with osCMax...

[gheffron]

Ach! I just entered my triumphant reply, but forgot to "submit reply." Foolish me. Now, I retype...

Anyhow, I found the solution! It's a bug in IE downloading over a secure connection. There's a fix for it that I found in the oscommerce forums, which is a very simply modification to the catalog/download.php file. You can view it in post #13 at http://forums.oscommerce.com/index.php?showtopic=31123

I just made the change an it worked right away.

Michael -- Any way to add this fix to the latest download of OSCMAX?

Thanks for all your help. Hope this helps someone else in the future,
gheffron

[michael_s]

Glad it worked for you, but that doesn't explain why downloads on IE 6 and 7 work fine for me without making any changes. I still think it is a browser configuration issue more than anything. If I have more time, I will try to break my configuration to see what the actual cause is (or at least why my IE's work and yours don't)