IE 6 and 7 unable to download generated xls

Opera and Mozilla generate and download just fine. IE (tried 6 and 7) throw message:
---
Internet Explorer cannot download index.php?pid=download from www.mysite.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.
---

Do you have ideas what is the reason IE cant get the file from stream?

I had the same problem.

Use this headers:

header ("Content-type: application/x-msexcel");
header ("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"" . basename($export_file) . "\"" );
readfile($export_file);
exit;

I am using those headers and still get the errors.

Any ideas.

just reload your apache server...

Use this code:

header("Pragma: public");
header("Expires: 0");
header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0");
header("Content-Type: application/force-download");
header("Content-Type: application/octet-stream");
header("Content-Type: application/download");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=".basename($export_file).";");
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
header("Content-Length: ".filesize($export_file));
readfile($export_file);
exit;

I had the same issue. Solved it...the details are in this blog post: http://www.dougboude.com/blog/1/2009/06/Disappearing-IE-Popup-Window-During-SaveOpen-Dialog.cfm

easy answer...

all the code headers and everything else the other guys said is 100% correct... only problem in IE is; it won't allow BUTTONS to activate the download... so you need to convert it to a <a href=...> link.

I'm using the headers as suggested. IE pops up the warning banner about downloading a file, but the file never downloads.

I inserted the header statements suggested by argo naut. IE no longer throws errors, but I never get the file downloaded...even though the IE warning banner tells me the site is trying to download a file. Probably some obscure setting in IE, but can't find it.

$file = "name_of_file.xls";

header("Pragma: public");
header("Expires: 0");
header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0");
header("Content-Type: application/force-download");
header("Content-Type: application/octet-stream");
header("Content-Type: application/download");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=".basename($file).";");
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
header("Content-Length: ".filesize($file));

Work´s fine! =))