Returning an MVC FileContentResult to download .pdf file from - ajax

Question

Hi I've search around for this quite a bit but I didn't find a situation that really resembled mine..hope I didn't miss a duplicate somewhere
The Goal: Return a file from a UNC share to the client as a download/open option.
Info: The share is located on a different server than the one hosting the web site. When a corresponding folder name on the menu is clicked, I am able to successfully read from the share (I return the files as a JSON result) and in Jquery I then append list items for each file found in the folder and make the list item ID's the filename. This works great.
When these appended list items are clicked on I pass their ID's (which are the filename, like "thefile.pdf") to the following controller which returns a FileContentResult.
files[0].ToString() below is similar to "\server\folder\"
public ActionResult OpenTheFile(string id)
{
List<string> files = new List<string>();
files.AddRange(Directory.GetFiles(LNFiles.ThePath, id, SearchOption.AllDirectories));
Response.AppendHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=" + id + ";");
return File(files[0].ToString(), System.Net.Mime.MediaTypeNames.Application.Pdf, id);
}
And yes the obligatory "it works on my local machine". When deployed to the IIS 7.5 server and I click on the list item I get this YSOD error:
The handle is invalid. (Exception from
HRESULT: 0x80070006 (E_HANDLE))
I'm impersonating a user with rights to the file share...I'm at a loss, i was thinking something with encoding or screwed up rights? I've tried using a virtual dir instead but alas same issue.

Answer 1

In my case
changing this:
public ActionResult Download(int id)
{
var item = ItemRepo.GetItemById(id);
string path = Path.Combine(Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/Items"), item.Path);
return File(path, "application/octetstream", item.Path);
}
to this:
public ActionResult Download(int id)
{
var item = ItemRepo.GetItemById(id);
string path = Path.Combine(Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/Items"), item.Path);
return File(new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open), "application/octetstream", item.Path);
}
has worked. I am putting this here just in case anyone needs.

Answer 2

Check out this for a workaround
You may want to try a packet capture to see if you are receiving the same issue as documented here:
http://forums.asp.net/t/1473379.aspx/1
For your unc path - are you directly referencing \servername\share or are you using a network mapped drive letter?

Answer 3

God Bless you : ProgRockCode.
and since that involved an ActionResult, I wrote a custom ActionResult that used the "WriteFile" method.
public override void ExecuteResult(ControllerContext context)
{
context.HttpContext.Response.WriteFile(FilePath, true);
context.HttpContext.Response.End();
}