Jquery + JSON: IE8/IE9 treats response as downloadable file

        private static string SetContentTypeBasedOnBrowserAndCommand(HttpContext context)
        {
            var contentType = "application/json"; // default
            // if browser is IE
            if (DegreeCore.Util.BrowserUtil.IsIE(context.Request.Browser))
            {
                // override response
                 contentType = "text/html"; 
            }

            return contentType;

        }

25 comments on “Jquery + JSON: IE8/IE9 treats response as downloadable file”

1. Zlatko on 27/09/2012 at 13:00 said:

   I have the same problem (json) in Firefox!???
2. Andreas on 27/09/2012 at 13:08 said:

   Really? Have you tried changing the content type to “text/html” before returning the response for FF as well?

   Another thing you can check is what the “accepted types” in the Request header says for your application. Make sure it includes “text/html” or at least “*/*”, or else the browser might not accept it and only offer you the option to save it as a file.

   Let me know how you go, because this could be useful for others!
3. Zlatko on 27/09/2012 at 14:05 said:

   it seems that everything is ok!? But it isn’t!!!

   elFinder 2.0

   I have the same message when open elFinder!

   Invalid backend response.
   Data is not JSON.
4. Zlatko on 27/09/2012 at 14:07 said:

   In head I have: meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=utf-8″
5. Andreas on 27/09/2012 at 14:10 said:

   It was actually in ElFinder my problem occured as well. Have you written your own .NET connector, or is it in PHP or some other language? While researching this problem I came across an article with the same “Invalid backend response. Data is not JSON” error as the one you have:

   https://github.com/Studio-42/elFinder/issues/263

   I originally posted my problem there as well, but was told this had to be a connector issue in my case. Maybe that article might help you? The bugfix for that particular problem is shown here: https://github.com/Studio-42/elFinder/commit/60ce68418b
6. Andreas on 27/09/2012 at 14:12 said:

   Regarding your last comment:

   Is that from the response header? Can you also send the content-type and accepted parameters from the request header?
7. Zlatko on 27/09/2012 at 15:01 said:

   REQUEST
   User-Agent Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:15.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/15.0.1
   Accept text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
   Accept-Language sl,en-gb;q=0.7,en;q=0.3
   Accept-Encoding gzip, deflate

   RESPONSE
   RESPONSE HTTP/1.1 200 OK
   Server nginx/1.0.6
   Content -Type text/html
   X-Powered-By PHP/5.3.8
   Content-Encoding gzip
8. Andreas on 27/09/2012 at 15:05 said:

   OK..

   Which platform are you running ElFinder on? PHP, Python, .NET… ? And which operation triggers this problem (in my case it was the UPDATE command)? Have you written the connector yourself or is it one of the ones listed here: https://github.com/Studio-42/elFinder/wiki/3rd-party-connectors%2C-plugins%2C-modules
9. Zlatko on 27/09/2012 at 15:06 said:

   Sorry! Wrong data!!!
10. Andreas on 27/09/2012 at 15:07 said:

    Does that mean you found and solved the problem?
11. Zlatko on 27/09/2012 at 15:15 said:

    Not yet:(
12. Aydar Akhmetov on 28/09/2012 at 13:14 said:

    Hi!
    I broke my brains while resolving this problem.
    My solution:

    header(‘Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8′);
    header(‘X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff’);
13. Zlatko on 28/09/2012 at 21:24 said:

    Thanks! I will try tomorrow!:)
14. Aydar Akhmetov on 29/09/2012 at 20:19 said:

    Helped?
15. Andreas on 08/10/2012 at 15:03 said:

    Zlatko: did Aydars solution work?
16. jkella on 08/10/2012 at 20:43 said:

    HI Andreas,

    Do we any option to run jquery drag and drop in Internet Explorer ..
17. Andreas on 08/10/2012 at 20:58 said:

    jQuery drag and drop should work in all browsers, but not sure I understand the question Is it related to this post, or just a general jQuery question?
18. Shamir Salih on 09/10/2012 at 09:25 said:

    Thanks Aydar , I set the content type and it worked for me…

    header(‘Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8′);
19. Aydar Akhmetov on 09/10/2012 at 13:03 said:

    You are welcome
20. Aydar Akhmetov on 09/10/2012 at 13:05 said:

    Do you use it: header(‘X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff’)?
21. Shamir Salih on 10/10/2012 at 06:08 said:

    No – I havent it.
22. Njål on 26/10/2012 at 16:07 said:

    Here’s a static method (no input/output) that detects IE and sets ContentType directly!

    public static void SetProperJsonContentType()
    {
    var ua = HttpContext.Current.Request.UserAgent;
    HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentType = (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(ua) && ua.ToLower().Contains(“msie”)) ? “text/html” : “application/json”;
    }
23. Rodrigo on 13/03/2013 at 15:42 said:

    Hi, Great Post!

    I’m facing the same issue, but I’m not calling the url from a .jsp or .aspx page, I’m calling direclty from Browser URL. Do you know how can I change this on the browser configuration? I really need to call a JSON URL to use via IE, via Chrome is working properly. Thanks
24. Kerem on 03/04/2013 at 18:51 said:

    You saved my day,
    thanks.

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