Hello everyone.
I'll just post this here and if its not the place I guess you'll let me know, and i'll wander back into the labyrinth that is Drupal proper. I'm loath to disturb the core gods so thought I might ask here.
My issue is as it has always been with Drupal since I started dragging sites through 4.7 to 5 to 6 to 7. I am a huge fan of Drupal of course, but one thing remains consistent throughout. Private Files. In the community sites I do , private files are essential, access control is essential. I'd think thats true of all sites really which are more than just giant advertisements. I'm building a site now because the community simply cant afford an actual 'real' developer , and i'm just a photographer with a dangerous love of drupal and friends in this community.
Here in Drupal 7 , the curse of "Array to string conversion in drupal_send_headers" hangs about for anything put into private storage , but now ( now finally getting the point of this post ) along with those php notices comes a real problem.
Google Chrome - the most used browser , has problems with private pdf files. I've reported this to google and that has no doubt disappeared into googles own labyrinth, but I cant help feel that those header notices are connected.
Chrome will show in browser the pdf if the pdf is in public storage fine. It displays the pdf language ( ewww) not the pdf if the pdf is in private storage. Safari and Edge download the file as expected. This happens in OSX and Windows 10 . Android and iOS are fine with everything. Interestingly enough on the local site in MAMP , everything is fine.
My own thought are that the header issue begins in the File module, or the file_entity module but I don't know. I'm certainly reading up and learning , but that doesn't help my present site. So. I'm asking here for some direction or some ideas.
Sorry about my rambling - a bad habit I'm told.
kate
Comments
G'day Kate. You are
G'day Kate. You are mentioning 2 things that may be related:
- The warning about headers
- The fact that chrome shows the -binary? instead of downloading the pdf.
When files are private stored, the file is given to the browser via php and not directly from the webserver. This means php must send the correct header for the browser to interpret this as a file to be downloaded (or asked what to do with it)
This means your sent headers should be (at min):
Content-Type: application/pdf
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="downloaded.pdf"
Therefore, I suspect the "Array to string conversion" warning you mention has something to do with it.
I never encounter this issue myself so I cannot point you to a direct solution, but I hope I gave you some info that helps you to look into issue queues or google.
I would suggest check the issue queues of the module you use to upload the file and in core issue queues for patches / fixes.
Cheers!
Thanks seaarg for replying.
Thanks seaarg for replying. Really appreciate it.
I've been all over the core issues queue and all google responses to such header warnings. All header warnings I have found point to various modules but recently mostly to image module, and I have patched the image module with a patch found in core which has existed all through drupal 7 releases. But I don't use yet images so wasn't expecting it to make much difference and it didn't.
Ive kept things simple so far. I have added a field attachment using file to a book page and thats it. I've kept the allowed files to txt pdf . If any module is causing this its core i think.
I'm leaning toward the core file module myself but cant find any issues in core like mine. Specifically " Notice: Array to string conversion in drupal_send_headers() (line 1475 of /includes/bootstrap.inc)." strangely that line is a blank line?
Just a question about a point in your reply .
"When files are private stored, the file is given to the browser via php and not directly from the webserver."
my understanding is that drupal comes up with a 'virtual path' from the file root , in my case 'files' to serve the file. Is that correct? if so , how does it arrive at this virtual path ?
Thanks again
The private file transfer is
The private file transfer is done in "file_transfer()" function at line 1955 of includes/file.inc
Around this function you will see other functions used in this process as well, like file_download() and file_download_headers()
In bootstrap.inc the function drupal_send_headers() sends the headers we are talking about, but those are set before in other parts of the code.
The warning you are getting is definitively some kind of bug or corrupted install (just guessing) and solving it may or may not solve the chrome + pdf problem as well. There is definitively some unexpected array over there, hence the warning when it tries to concatenate the header string.
Since you are using the core file module, a good place to start debugging this is trace from file_file_download() function at file.module
I cannot tell you an exact breakpoint or variables to check, but here's a question: have you tried replicate the issue in a clean drupal install? I cannot infer that from your original post.
This is a long shot, but try to open the console (F12) and check network tab. Once you click the download link, get the response headers for the pdf request and paste it here, maybe there's something we can use in there.
Btw: "(line 1475 of /includes/bootstrap.inc)." strangely that line is a blank line?" In a Drupal 7 I have over here, that line have this: header($header_names[$name_lower] . ': ' . $value);
WOW. So much new information
WOW. So much new information for me to look into . Thanks. I need to take some time to absorb all that and read up.
Also, i'll set up a clean install on MAMP , and one on the server I'm using. I should have thought of doing that.
I'll get back here soon as I have played around for a bit. might be a day or two. Thanks so much seaarg :) . Woohoo .
"This is a long shot, but try
"This is a long shot, but try to open the console (F12) and check network tab. Once you click the download link, get the response headers for the pdf request and paste it here, maybe there's something we can use in there."
can you explain what you mean here please
Sure, in Chrome if you press
Sure, in Chrome if you press the F12 key (or menu > more tools > developer tools) you'll have the chrome debug console. In it there is a "Network" tab that shows all network connections when you hit a page.
When you click the download pdf link, a new entry will appear on that list: If you click it, you'll have the request and response headers (along with other information). Look for "Response Headers" somewhere there and you will see things like this:
Accept-Ranges:bytes
Connection:close
Content-Length:20597
Content-Type:application/pdf
Date:Sun, 04 Dec 2016 23:32:01 GMT
ETag:"5075-500fc43c07c00"
Last-Modified:Tue, 19 Aug 2014 14:25:52 GMT
Server:Apache
X-SERVER:2627
I believe the "Accept-Ranges: bytes" header is very important for Chrome + PDF
Make sure you have at least accept-ranges, content-length and content-type: application/pdf in your server response.
I am a developer myself, but I hope this will help you at least to have something to start with. I'll help you as much as I can from here :)
Cheers from Argentina!
k Things are different on a
k
Things are different on a mac, the console works different, so I swapped over to windows, and found the info as you suggested. Hummm. Might stay with windows now/soonish
Response Headers
accept-ranges:bytes
cache-control:Array
content-length:593016
content-type:array
date:Mon, 05 Dec 2016 03:44:35 GMT
etag:1b37ba2-5841774f-90c78
expires:Sun, 19 Nov 1978 05:00:00 GMT
last-modified:Fri, 02 Dec 2016 13:29:51 GMT
pragma:private
server:LiteSpeed
status:200
x-content-type-options:nosniff
x-powered-by:PHP/5.6.28
no content-type:application/pdf ?
Ah Ha!the warning you are
Ah Ha!
the warning you are getting is array to string conversion.
Also, see how it says:
cache-control: array
content-type: array
That is the reason why is failing. content-type should be application/pdf but for some reason you have, in code probably, an array where you suppose to have a string variable.
It's debug time :)
btw: I use linux, not windows but I guess the commands for chrome console are the same
Okay :) , so I suspect there
Okay :) , so I suspect there are lots of readers liking this thread for learning purposes , but it may be not what this group likes to see posted here. It may be that this group is for posting australian events . I don't know . So, in case this is breaking/stretching the rules , myself and seaarg will take the issue he is helping me with to private email. Thanks for letting me find someone to help me though :) . Drupal users are the best :)
kate