When I enable page cache-plugin for joomla I can only download attachements once. If I click a second time on the attachment-link I only get a blank page. I am seeking a solution for this so I can use the cache-plugin together with k2.

Hello,
The blank page indicated a PHP Fatal Error.

Please enable error reporting and set it to maximum in order to see the actual error.

It is still blank even if error reporting is set to maximum.

Can you look at your error_log ?
Your hosting provider might assist you on locating it, if you do not know its location.

Nothing in the error log, but the server gives a 304 response.

GET /xxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxx/item/download/149_cb2d60633d582163a9ce8e7b00819eb6 HTTP/1.1" 304

httpstatuses.com/304

Which caching plugin are you using? Joomla!"s native page cache or a 3rd party one?

Joomla!"s native page cache.

:-)

Is the caching plugin enabled?

Not sure what you mean, but for the moment the native page cache plugin is disabled since it gives a blank page when second time clicking on an attachment-link just gives the blank page and server reports 304 error.

I had browser cache enabled inside the plugin, and when I disable that the problem seem to be solved. I tried that when writing this so I will have to wait and test before I am 100% sure. It would of course be nice to have that enabled, but if works this way it is ok.

Actually, that is what I meant.
Joomla! caching plugin.

Let me know on your findings. With page caching disabled is the issue resolved?

Yes, with plugin disabled it is solved. But it is enough to disable the browser cache option inside the plugin. Then I can still use the cache plugin to make the pages load fast. :-)

`Nice to hear this :)

I am jumping back on this page because we have the same problem with attachments downloads.

Seems like it sets something in the browser cache whether the cache is activated or not. We tested all configurations and every time a click on a download link sets the default url to this link only, making that any url will download the same file again and again.

The only way to restore old behavior is to add a query parameter at the end of any url so that the browser requests something else, like ?tp=1 for instance

We tested with all htaccess files including the standard joomla default one so it's not a htaccess problem. We deactivated all joomla caches or jot cache plugins, cache was empty, so that's neither a joomla plugin cache problem

We deactivated on the fly SEF and the behavior was then correct. Correct download of the file and then correct behavior of all urls.
Reactivating SEF on the fly shows back the problem

There are absolutely no errors in any apache or nginx logs.

Thanks for helping to solve this or our only solution would be to stop using k2 component.

Regards
Jean

Hello,
Which version of Joomla! and K2 are you using?
Also what is your 'normal' caching configuration?

Joomla 3.8.7 and K2 v 2.8.0
There is no cache activated in config for tests

The only solution that I found was to add index.php before the generation of the download link in the item template.

It works but I guess that this is something you should have a look at :-)

Thank you for your feedback, We 'll investigate it.
Is it possible to have some more info on your setup? PHP version/ Server etc?

Yes here it is : Apache with Nginx proxy on linux server with Maria DB with PHP 7, Joomla 3.8.7 all components updated, jotcache (deactivated for this post and cache emptied)

You are not by any chance using engintron.com/ ?

No we don't
We checked all server side and everything is working fine.
This is a very important problem because it seems that the web engines have cached the download links and now we have every day a break in the website which only download the item from every page.

That's crazy. Do you have a suggestion to stop this ? any hints at the problem ?