File Download Issue

[cyclonebri]

Hey everyone. I am trying to get a file to download to browser or give the option of saving to disk when selected by a user from a webpage. My issue is very simple but I cannot seem to figure out how to solve it. I have a page that is called when appropriate and passed in is a filename to download. The directory is irrelevant at this point based on how I have set up the next phase.

The called page consumes a webservice which takes the passed in filename and a password, and then returns in a string the specific path to the file on the server. In this manner even the webpage is independent of the location of the files, and more obscurity is obtained for security purposes. Anyway, after all of this, my issue is that the code I'm using to try to download the file seems to be looking for the file on the client machine, and not on the server. I continue to get the 'File not found' exception, even though the file does exist on the server. If I mimic the path on the client machine, I of course do not get the error, which is how I've determined that I'm not looking at the correct machine.

Is there a specific setting or chunk of code that I might be missing that would make sure the path for file download is server-side and not client-side? Here is my code:

Try
            Dim myWFS As New WebFileShare.WebFileShare
            Dim source As String = Request("source")
            If IsNothing(source) Then
                Throw New Exception("ERROR: No filename passed in, cannot procede!")
            End If
            Dim filepath As String = myWFS.GetFilePath(source, myPASSWD)

            If Not filepath Is Nothing Then
                If File.Exists(filepath) Then
                    Response.Clear()
                    Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream"
                    Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", _
                      "attachment; filename=""" & source & """")
                    Response.Flush()
                    Response.WriteFile(filepath)
                End If
            End If
        Catch ex As Exception
            If Trace.IsEnabled Then
                Trace.Write("AssociatedFileDownload", ex.ToString())
            End If
        Finally
            Response.Write("<script language=""javascript"">window.close();</script>")
        End Try

Thanks, Brian

 

[cyclonebri]

Allright, chalk this one up to working on Saturday when it's really nice out...but, I have built a work-around, in which my web service returns the valid URL path (using a virtual directory) instead of server filepath to the file, so instead of trying to stream it, I just launch a new webpage and have that page redirect to the URL for the file which accomplishes the download/save option. Not the exact way I wanted it to work, but it is a solution. I was hoping to stream the output, maybe another time I will figure all that out.

Thanks,
Brian