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Prompt to authenticate when downloading file, in IE only?

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Prompt to authenticate when downloading file, in IE only?

Ben Bimber

2012-12-07 10:23

Status: Closed

We had a user report a problem when using IE. They double clicked an excel file from a files webpart, clicked 'open' when prompted (as opposed to 'save'). Normally you'd expect this to just open the file. Instead, you get an authentication prompt. What's worse, this prompt is placed behind all windows, so it's hard to see it happening.

I was able to repro this on labkey.org. To repro:

1. go to labkey.org
2. search for 'xls'
3. click one of the links to download the file. for example:

https://www.labkey.org/search/home/search.view?q=xls

then click one of the file links, such as:

https://www.labkey.org/files/Kim/%40files/assaydata/m0902051%3B3997.xls?renderAs=DEFAULT&_docid=dav%3A%2F_webdav%2FKim%2F%40files%2Fassaydata%2Fm0902051%3B3997.xls

The first time I attempted this, I hit cancel when I got the login prompt. If you do that, excel will open an excel file that is the LK login screen.

I can repro this on multiple computers here. Do you guys see this too? It's IE specific. Other browsers work fine.

Matthew Bellew responded:	2012-12-07 10:39
It sounds like rather than downloading the file itself, IE must be handing off the URL to Excel but not your credentials. Has this started happening with a new version of IE/Windows/Office?

Ben Bimber responded:	2012-12-07 10:42
here's some info Stan found that might be relevant http://superuser.com/questions/335972/ie9-behind-authenticated-proxy-prompts-for-credentials-when-opening-office-docum http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2019105 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943280

Matthew Bellew responded:	2012-12-07 11:37
After some investigation, it looks like in most all scenarios we use Content-Disposition:attachment. The exception is when double-clicking on a file in the file-browser (vs using the download button). I need to fire up a Windows VM, but I'll see if that fixes the problem.

Matthew Bellew responded:	2012-12-07 11:40
PS: the reason we don't do attachment in this case, is that we want to let the browser decide which documents it knows how to display. Specifically, most browsers will display pdf files, and we don't want to defeat that feature. I think this really is somewhat botched up on the IE/Office side. Matt

Matthew Bellew responded:	2012-12-07 11:52
https://www.labkey.org/issues/home/Developer/issues/details.view?issueId=16729