mahara-contributors team mailing list archive

[awillson <1193158@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I did several iterations of testing to try to fix the IE "zip" problem.
Nothing seemed to work properly.  Eventually I discovered that the "zip"
download issue is prevalent throughout all Microsoft products.  The
problem seems to be that IE ignores the mime type supplied by the web
server [apache, but also IIS], and the mime type of docx, pptx, etc are
incorrectly assigned in the registry.  

There are a few MS forum pages on this issue.  The official MS response
is that the mime types should be assigned correctly by the web server,
of course IIS.  And then there are several user posts indicating that
the mime types are set correctly at the server with no effect.  And then
other users indicating that docx is actually a zip file - which is true
- so the mime type is working correctly even though a docx should open
with Word and be saved with a docx extension. And around we go...

In short, this doesn't seem to be a Mahara problem at all, and it is NOT
FIXABLE since IE is incorrectly "sniffing" the mime type.  I apologize
for not updating the bug report to indicate my findings, and I truly
appreciate the efforts in hunting down the stated problem.  It is
unfortunate that the installation of Mahara I administer is used by
client machines with older Microsoft software.  Thank you again very
much for replicating the problem, and attempting to correct the reported
"bug". However, there's not much that I or the Mahara team can do about
this particular issue.

--Andrew

-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron Wells <1193158@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: andrew.willson@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Bug 1193158] Re: Missing mime types
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 07:44:46 -0000


Well, I don't have a copy of IE8 on hand to test this with right now,
but I was able to replicate the error in IE6 as follows:

1. Get a Word document with the .docx file extension. (I've attached one
to this comment).

2. In IE6, go to the Content -> Files page in Mahara. Upload the docx
file there.

Expected result: It should show up with the generic "file" icon next to
it and be treated like a normal binary file.

Actual result: It shows up with the "Zip" icon, and has an "unzip"
option available.

The patch supplied didn't fix this problem for IE6. BUT, it doesn't
claim to, it's supposed to fix the problem for IE8. So, once I can get a
copy of IE8 to test this out on (or if someone else wants to test the
patch), we should be able to upstream it.

** Attachment added: "A .docx file for testing"
   https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/1193158/+attachment/3782044/+files/Test.docx

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1193158

Title:
  Missing mime types

Status in Mahara ePortfolio:
  In Progress

Bug description:
  There are critical mime types missing for support of docx, pptx, xlsx files.
  I believe this may work:

  Add the following to htdocs/artefact/file/filetypes.xml

  <filetype>
          <description>docx</description>
          <mimetypes>
              <mimetype>application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document</mimetype>
          </mimetypes>
      </filetype>
      <filetype>
          <description>pptx</description>
          <mimetypes>
              <mimetype>application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation</mimetype>
          </mimetypes>
      </filetype>
      <filetype>
          <description>xlsx</description>
          <mimetypes>
              <mimetype>application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet</mimetype>
          </mimetypes>
      </filetype>

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