IE8 stalls after 302 in new window

Question

My client's website opens external links in new windows (with target="_blank"). The links are also routed through a logger which responds with a 302 redirect to the desired page.

For example, instead of

<a href="http://stackoverflow.com"&gt;...&lt;/a&gt;

We have

<a href="/redirect?to=http://stackoverflow.com" target="_blank">...</a>

Where /redirect?to=$url returns an HTTP 302 to $url.

This works fine in all browsers except IE8. Instead of opening a new window with the desired URL, IE8 opens a new window and stalls with a progress throbber and an empty address bar. If I then hit stop and reload, the desired URL loads.

Has anyone encountered this problem? Is there a known solution that preserved my client's desired behavior? That is, to open links in a new window with redirect-based logging.

Answer 1

I know it's just a workaround, but... use JS redirection if the browser is IE8?

Answer 2

Watch your traffic in a network traffic debugger like Fiddler2 to see what's happening on the wire. You can then add the exact raw text of the HTTP response to your question to help with replicating your results.

Also, is this redirection crossing between IE security zones (e.g. Internet,Intranet, etc)? In particular, it's always interesting if a redirection crosses (Vista+) from a Protected Mode Zone to a non-Protected Mode zone, as this goes through a rather obscure codepath in IE.