HttpHandler Returning Zero Length byte[]

Question

I have a custom HttpHandler that invokes a webservice to get a file. In test, I invoke the production webservice and the HttpHandler returns the file correctly. When I test it in the production environment on the server, it works as well. However, if I invoke the HttpHandler from a remote client (not on the server) the filename and size are set correctly, but the file bytes that are downloaded are zero. Any ideas?

Answer 1

So here's the deal. I created a multipart range handler (you need to implement the RFC in order to stream content to, say, an iPhone or Adobe Reader). The spec is suppose to enable handling a file when the client requests a range of bytes instead of the whole array. The issue with my handler came when the client wanted the whole BLOB:

if (context.Request.Headers[HEADER_RANGE] != null)
{
  ...
}
else
{
    context.Response.ContentType = contentItem.MimeType;
    addHeader(context.Response, HEADER_CONTENT_DISPOSITION, "attachment; filename=\"" + contentItem.Filename + "\"");
    addHeader(context.Response, HEADER_CONTENT_LENGTH, contentItem.FileBytes.Length.ToString());
    context.Response.OutputStream.Write(contentItem.FileBytes, 0, contentItem.FileBytes.Length);
}

Notice anything missing???

I forgot to include:

context.Response.Flush();

After adding that line of code, it started working in the production environment. I find it very odd, however, that this was working on the server and not on any clients. Anyone able to shed any light on why that would be?