Question

Given the following code (and only this code):

<?php 
if (headers_sent()) {
  die('cannot send location header (anymore)');
}
else {
  header("Refresh: 0; url=http://www.google.com"); //This does not work
  //header("Location: http://www.google.com"); //This does work
  die();
}
?>

Does anyone have any thoughts/suggestions why this will not work on a particular network?

The above codes directs to Google on 3 of the 4 networks I have tested (home, my work, a friend’s home network).

However, when I load this page on my client’s network, he only gets a blank page.

The commented code above is my workaround…but I would really love to know why Refresh would not work on this one particular network.

Answer 1

Refresh is not an official HTTP header field. Although HTML’s META element with http-equiv attribute might implicate that anything that works there should also work with the real HTTP, Refresh was never an actual HTTP header field (and http-equiv does not mean HTTP-equivalent).

Just use the standard Location instead.