# MSIE download troubles

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/msie-download-troubles/143659>\
**Category:** NGINX\
**Created:** [July 21, 2008, 5:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/msie-download-troubles/143659 "2008-07-21T17:19:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Martin\_Eggen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/8edcca/32.png) [@Martin\_Eggen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Eggen)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 5:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/msie-download-troubles/143659/1 "2008-07-21T17:19:00Z")

</div>

Hi,  
I have a pretty standard nginx reverse proxy set up, nginx 0.6.31  
terminates SSL  
and forwards requests to application server.

Said application (portal) has some files available for download,  
Internet  
Explorer fails to load these, for some reason I haven’t figured out.  
Explorer gives the error “cannot download file (…) The requested site  
is either  
unavailable or cannot be found”. However, there are no errors in the  
logs, and a  
dump shows that Explorer indeed loads the entire file (but fails to open  
it  
properly).

Other browsers work without problems, and Explorer loads and opens the  
files  
perfectly if requesting them directly from the portal (bypassing the  
proxy).

My config contains the following:

sendfile on;  
keepalive\_timeout 65;  
gzip off;  
client\_max\_body\_size 10m;  
client\_body\_buffer\_size 128k;

Any hints how to please IE?

regards,  
Martin

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Martin\_Eggen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/8edcca/32.png) [@Martin\_Eggen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Eggen)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 5:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/msie-download-troubles/143659/2 "2008-07-21T17:44:54Z")

</div>

Hi

I cannot be sure, but I remember, a long time ago, having to use the  
BrowserMatch force-no-vary hack for MSIE.  
The error that you are getting from MSIE was exactly the one I used to  
see.

Google around for “force-no-vary” and see if the first post makes any  
sense to you

It appeared that MSIE choked when the “Vary” header was sent in the HTTP  
response.  
Of course, I may be completely off track here, but can you check the  
following:

Sniff the HTTP packets between your browser and NGINX. See if you are  
getting the “Vary” response being sent back to you from NGINX.  
Grepping through an older version of nginx (0.5.30), I can see that  
NGINX doesn’t do anything special with the Vary header. So possibly,  
your app server needs to be told not to send back the vary header for  
MSIE browsers

Again, I may be completely off-track, but is your app server Apache ? If  
I remember aright, using mod\_rewrite caused the Vary header to be sent  
back in some cases, and that choked IE

Hope this helps

Regards  
Mansoor

----- “Martin Eggen” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

| From: “Martin Eggen” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
| To: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
| Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 9:06:47 PM GMT +05:30 Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi  
| Subject: MSIE download troubles  
|  
| Hi,  
| I have a pretty standard nginx reverse proxy set up, nginx 0.6.31  
| terminates SSL  
| and forwards requests to application server.  
|  
| Said application (portal) has some files available for download,  
| Internet  
| Explorer fails to load these, for some reason I haven’t figured out.  
| Explorer gives the error “cannot download file (…) The requested site  
| is either  
| unavailable or cannot be found”. However, there are no errors in the  
| logs, and a  
| dump shows that Explorer indeed loads the entire file (but fails to  
| open it  
| properly).  
|  
| Other browsers work without problems, and Explorer loads and opens the  
| files  
| perfectly if requesting them directly from the portal (bypassing the  
| proxy).  
|  
| My config contains the following:  
|  
| sendfile on;  
| keepalive\_timeout 65;  
| gzip off;  
| client\_max\_body\_size 10m;  
| client\_body\_buffer\_size 128k;  
|  
| Any hints how to please IE?  
|  
| regards,  
| Martin