IE prompts to open or save json result from server

Question

Internet explorer in compatibility mode gets the data from the server in an ajax callback method, and pops-up a dialog if I want to save the data or open. How to get rid of that?

client says:

$.ajax({
        type:'POST',
        data: $("#UIdlgHolder > form").serialize(),
        url: $("#UIdlgHolder > form").attr("action"),
        success: function (data, textStatus, jqXHR) {
            {
                alert(data.message);
            }
}

server answers:

return new JsonResult { Data = new { result = false, message = "Yay!" } };

This isn't specific to ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC3, or jQuery; hence it's a duplicate of [this question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13943439/json-response-download-in-ie710). — Kenny Evitt, Aug 20 '14 at 20:00
See my answer [here](http://stackoverflow.com/a/30180509/2305243) — Alan Dong, May 12 '15 at 02:02

score 36 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 01 '11 at 13:33

36

Even though it's not supposedly the correct way, setting the content type to text/html made IE deal with this correctly for me:

return Json(result, "text/html");

Works in all the version that F12 tools gives you in IE9.

answered Jun 01 '11 at 13:33

ItsJason

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It's not the correct way. There is no "supposedly" about it. – Cheeso Apr 30 '12 at 20:57
2

This is the only thing that worked for me. I had no control over the ajax request (third-party control) and IE9 would *not* work. So even if it isn't the correct way, it still works (with no problems on other browsers so far) – kkara Aug 28 '12 at 12:43
Its annoying, but correct. I had a form that i was capturing the Submit() event on and firing AJAX to get a JSON response, and IE kept stupidly trying to Open/Save the JSON response in the background! This cleared it up, at the cost of loosing the nice JSON formatting in Firefox when viewing that URL directly. – Graham Mar 07 '13 at 20:50
2

The reason this is wrong is that angle brackets, which are valid within JSON, result in the browser treating the JSON as mal-formed HTML – Dexygen Dec 15 '14 at 18:45
Thanks alot. After wasting 6 hrs i just did this. my bluimp file upload working awesome now on IE9 too. Thanks again. – Zohaib Aug 27 '15 at 15:05
1

Bit late to the party, but one more note - this appears to only be an issue in IE9 (and below) when the form is multipart/form-data. So you can avoid setting incorrect headers except in that circumstance. – Colin Sep 02 '15 at 09:38
@GeorgeJempty is correct. A better alternative would be `"text/plain"`. – gilly3 Jan 15 '16 at 17:13

score 32 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 09 '13 at 19:35

32

If using MVC, one way of handling this is to implement a base controller in which you override (hide) the Json(object) method as follows:

public class ExtendedController : Controller
{
    protected new JsonResult Json(object data)
    {
        if (!Request.AcceptTypes.Contains("application/json"))
            return base.Json(data, "text/plain");
        else
            return base.Json(data);
    }
}

Now, your controllers can all inherit ExtendedController and simply call return Json(model); ...

without modifying the response content type for those browsers which play nicely (not <=IE9 !)
without having to remember to use Json(data, "text/plain") in your various Ajax action methods

This works with json requests which would otherwise display the "Open or Save" message in IE8 & IE9 such as those made by jQuery File Upload

answered Apr 09 '13 at 19:35

Chris

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Thanks Timothy, glad you like it! (It's saved so much pain in our projects). – Chris Apr 25 '13 at 13:17
1

Perfect, just perfect! – Carl R Oct 11 '13 at 12:43
i need same solution in web api, can you help me? – Nininea Sep 27 '14 at 15:44
I found using "text/plain" would return the json wrapped in '
' tags. Using "text/html" instead of "text/plain" fixed the issue.
– user2444499 Nov 04 '14 at 00:09
3

This solution has problems. For example, Chrome issues the blanket `AcceptTypes` of `*/*`, which this solution doesn't catch, and so Chrome ends up getting sent `text/plain`, which is incorrect. – James McCormack Jun 09 '15 at 10:23
What worked for me is check the browser type before sending the type back – Vikram Shetty Jun 16 '15 at 10:09

score 14 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:34

14

Sounds like this SO question may be relevant to you:

How can I convince IE to simply display Application json rather than offer to download

If not:

Have you tried setting the dataType expected in the ajax options? i.e. dataType: 'json'

Have you tried other content types such as 'application/json' or 'text/javascript'

edited May 23 '17 at 12:34

Community

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answered May 24 '11 at 20:27

Cargowire

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solution requires each user to run a regex hack... not useful for production web apps. – catbadger Jan 22 '18 at 21:23

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 01 '12 at 13:29

I changed the content-type to "text/html" instead of "application/json" server side before returning the response. Described it in a blog post, where other solutions have also been added:

http://blog.degree.no/2012/09/jquery-json-ie8ie9-treats-response-as-downloadable-file/

score 2 · Answer 5 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

2

Sadly, this is just another annoying quirk of using Internet Explorer.

The simple solution is to run a small .reg file on your PC, to tell IE to automatically open .json files, rather than nag about whether to open/save it.

I've put a copy of the file you'll need here:

JSON mime type

You'll need to have Admin rights to run this.

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

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answered Aug 31 '16 at 09:14

Mike Gledhill

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(Why did 2 people vote down this answer...? You *do* need to install a small registry change to get IE to automatically open JSON data, when you call a service from jQuery, rather than asking to save it, and no one else offered this suggestion.... I thought my answer was really useful. I lose faith in StackOverflow sometimes....) – Mike Gledhill Feb 23 '18 at 07:42

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered May 24 '11 at 17:27

2

Have you tried to send your ajax request using POST method ? You could also try to set content type to 'text/x-json' while returning result from the server.

answered May 24 '11 at 17:27

Tomasz Mikuś

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tell me, on which IE ( version 6,7,8,9, 10 test ) it fails on this request. – Tomasz Mikuś May 24 '11 at 19:27

Rael Gugelmin Cunha · Answer 7 · 2016-02-09T17:08:58.287

1

I faced this while using jQuery FileUpload plugin.

Then I took a look in their documentation, most exactly in the Content-Type Negotiation section and followed their suggestion for Ruby/Rails.

render(json: <some-data>, content_type: request.format)

Which fixed the issue for me.

Quick Explanation: for old IE/Opera versions, this plugin will use an iframe with text/plain or text/html content-type, so if you force the response to json, browser will try download it. Using the same content-type as in the request will make it work for any browser.

edited Feb 09 '16 at 17:08

answered Feb 09 '16 at 17:03

Rael Gugelmin Cunha

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That's the effing answer right here! Thanks for this! :) – Joshua Pinter Nov 19 '19 at 05:14

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered May 24 '11 at 19:45

Is above javascript code the one you're using in your web application ? If so - i would like to point few errors in it: firstly - it has an additional '{' sign in definition of 'success' callback function secondly - it has no ')' sign after definition of ajax callback. Valid code should look like:

$.ajax({
        type:'POST',
        data: 'args',
        url: '@Url.Action("PostBack")',
        success: function (data, textStatus, jqXHR) {
                alert(data.message);
            }
    });

try using above code - it gave me 'Yay' alert on all 3 IE versions ( 7,8,9 ).

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Oct 27 '18 at 12:19

0

In my case, IE11 seems to behave that way when there is some JS syntax error in the console (doesn't matter where exactly) and dataType: 'json' has no effect at all.

answered Oct 27 '18 at 12:19

Artur INTECH

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IE prompts to open or save json result from server

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