CGI script not working properly on new web server

Question

I have a simple CGI script that is working now in production that returns a json object, and so it returns a content type of application/x-javascript. In internet explorer, this file is asked to be downloaded, but i can successfully download it.

the cgi script is perl, and output simple json object

#!/bin/perl
print "Cache-control: no-cache\n";
print "Content-type: application/x-javascript\n\n" ;
print "var whatever = { .. data here .. }";

We are migrating to new servers, and I believe that that apache is set up similarly in both locations.

The problem is, IE now does not successfully download this file. i get this error:

---------------------------
Windows Internet Explorer
---------------------------
Internet Explorer cannot download hero.cgi from lpdww554.trcw.us.aexp.com.

Internet Explorer was not able to open this Internet site.  The requested site is either unavailable or cannot be found.  Please try again later.
---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

In debugging, i have tried text/plain, text/html and application/javascript to no avail. when using text, the output shows up properly in IE, but will not execute the javascript in the browser.

This script works in Firefox, and it works on my old server in IE (it downloads the file, does not show in browser). I can't figure out why it's not working on my new server, and i'm sure it's a HTTP header issue. I've posted my headers below.

IE New Script Headers

GET /path/script.cgi HTTP/1.1
Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/xaml+xml, application/vnd.ms-xpsdocument, application/x-ms-xbap, application/x-ms-application, application/vnd.ms-excel, application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, application/msword, */*
Accept-Language: en-us
UA-CPU: x86
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; InfoPath.2; MS-RTC LM 8)
Host: newserver.company.com:1091
Connection: Keep-Alive
Cookie: (cookie)

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 18:42:56 GMT
Server: IBM_HTTP_Server
Cache-control: no-cache
Expires: 0
Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=100
Connection: Keep-Alive
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: application/x-javascript

IE - Old Script Headers

GET /path/script.cgi HTTP/1.1
Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/xaml+xml,     application/vnd.ms-xpsdocument, application/x-ms-xbap, application/x-ms-application, application/vnd.ms-excel, application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, application/msword, */*
Accept-Language: en-us
UA-CPU: x86
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; InfoPath.2; MS-RTC LM 8)
Host: oldserver.company.com
Connection: Keep-Alive
Cookie: cookie

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: IBM_HTTP_Server
Content-Type: application/x-javascript
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 18:43:39 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: no-cache
Cache-Control: max-age=86400
Expires: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:43:38 GMT

Answer 1

Maybe the old domain is in the whitelist of your IE7 whereas the new one is not yet. Check the security/site settings for your old and new domain in IE7.

As it works with your old site, this should not be an issue, however, at least IE6 refuses to load application/javascript and only loads text/javascript, even though it now is deprecated (RFC 4329). No idea about IE7, though.

Answer 2

Turns out the Transfer-Encoding: chunked header effected this.

Turns out, i had to output a Content-Length: header, this solved the issue. I did this by saving everything to a variable, instead of printing it out directly, then added the content length header based on the Length() of the output.