HTTP client is redirected, but the old address is shown in address bar

Question

I have a pdf file available on www.example.com/pdf/something. On httpd configuration I have a redirection to www.example1.com/pdf/something. In both cases pdf is downloading, but the redirection to example1 domain can be seen only in the network tab of developer tools, in the address bar the user still sees www.example.com/pdf/something although the pdf is downloaded from the www.example1.com.

Update: The configuration is something similar to this

<VirtualHost *:80 *:443>
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteRule ^/$ https://www.example.com/en/ [R=301,L]
    RewriteCond %{HTTP:someheader} !somevalue
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example1.com/en$1 [END,R=301]
</VirtualHost>

I would guess a rewrite leaves the URL the same while a redirect will change it. If you are using a rewrite now, try using a redirect instead. — Tommiie, Jan 29 '19 at 16:49
Please show the relevant parts of your Apache configuration, which show how you are performing this redirect. — Michael Hampton, Jan 29 '19 at 16:51

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 30 '19 at 13:06

The reson of this issue was the content-disposition respons header with attachment value, changing it inline will force the browser to open the PDF in the browser and in that case the new location will be shown. THe othe possible soultion is returning a one line JS that forces the browser the PDF from another location. Long story short, the browser updates the address bar if there is a content to show, in my cas it was just downloading the PDF to the local storage.

HTTP client is redirected, but the old address is shown in address bar

1 Answers1