Question

I am setting the disposition of either inline or attachment based on users selection. It works but very intermittently. Once I select inline for the same file in the same browser, it works as expected. Once I switch to attachment, I don’t get the desired results unless I close and reopen the browser. I do flush the context and clear it as well.

Here’s the code I am using:

    public void GetResult(ControllerContext context)
    {
        context.HttpContext.Response.Buffer = true;
        context.HttpContext.Response.Clear();
        context.HttpContext.Response.ContentType = ContentType;

        ContentDisposition disposition = new ContentDisposition();
        disposition.FileName = FileName;
        disposition.Inline = this.ContentDispositionType == ContentDispositionType.Inline ? true : false;

        context.HttpContext.Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", disposition.ToString());
        context.HttpContext.Response.WriteFile(context.HttpContext.Server.MapPath(Path));

        context.HttpContext.Response.Flush();
        context.HttpContext.Response.End();
    }

Answer 1

It sounds like a browser caching issue. Try adding this:

Response.ExpiresAbsolute = DateTime.Now.Subtract(new TimeSpan(1, 0, 0, 0)); 
Response.Expires = 0; 
Response.CacheControl = "no-cache";