HTML page getting download prompt instead of displaying webpage
March 3, 2010 10:05 AM

I have a website which I maintain. I transferred the host recently to Dreamhost. Now, wheneven I open HTML pages I get a prompt asking me to download the HTML page. Before, of course, the page was displayed in the browser. Any suggestions? Example:
posted by alshain to Computers & Internet (5 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
Did you also bring over any .htaccess files when you moved over? If so, the .htaccess file might be saying "hey, send anything named .html to this processing engine!" and if Dreamhost doesn't support the same engine, you'll get the download prompt.

Backup, then delete the .htaccess file and see if it fixes your problem.
posted by Static Vagabond at 10:16 AM on March 3, 2010


The MIME type isn't set correctly. Create a .htaccess file in the root containing the following line:

AddType text/html *.html *.htm
posted by turkeyphant at 10:16 AM on March 3, 2010


I work at DreamHost. Sorry for the trouble you're having. If you could let me know what domain/website is affected, I'd be happy to have a look and help get this fixed up for you. Feel free to send it to me as a MeFi Mail here on MetaFilter if you'd like.
posted by MichaelS at 10:30 AM on March 3, 2010


Turkeyphant, I took your suggestion but doesn't seem to work.

MichaelS, I just sent you an email.
posted by alshain at 11:11 AM on March 3, 2010


Using the appropriate tool (Wireshark, Firebug, curl, whatever), figure out what the server is sending for the Content-Type and Content-Disposition headers. That will tell you what's wrong.
posted by Rhomboid at 11:23 AM on March 3, 2010


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