MVC Filestream Multiple Calls

Question

I have a FileStreamResult action that, with iTextSharp, opens a PDF document (CAD drawing), stamps our company information on it and then passes it to a memory stream to be returned.

Inside the method I have an audit method that records the transaction to SQL through Entity Framework. When I call the action I get three database transactions. While debugging the application hits the SQL record function three times.

Can anyone help me understand why? Does this have to do with routing?

EDIT I did some further testing and found that when I directly access the browser it only calls the method once. I am using jQuery with .PDFObject (www.pdfobject.com) to render the PDF inside another view. This jQuery method is calling the MVC method three times. Im still investigating...

public class DrawingsController : BaseController
{
    static BaseFont ...

    public FileStreamResult Index(string WOBase, string WOSub)
    {
        //Get associated drawing by work order
        WorkOrders WO = db.WorkOrders
            .Where(wo => wo.DRAWING_FILE != null && wo.BASE_ID == WOBase && wo.SUB_ID == WOSub)
            .FirstOrDefault();

        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(WO.DRAWING_FILE))
        {
            //The following records the transaction history (x3)
             BaseController.RecordNavigation(_employee.ID, "Print", WO.Drawing_URL);

            string readerURL = modifyPathToURL(WO.DRAWING_FILE);

            Response.Clear();
            MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
            PdfReader reader = new PdfReader(readerURL);

            PdfStamper stamper = new PdfStamper(reader, ms);
            for (int i = 1; i <= reader.NumberOfPages; ++i)
            {
                var stamperOverContent = stamper.GetOverContent(i);
                //Stamp information on document  
                ...
                stamperOverContent.EndText();
                stamperOverContent.RestoreState();
            }

            stamper.Writer.CloseStream = false;
            stamper.Close();

            byte[] byteinfo = ms.ToArray();
            ms.Write(byteinfo, 0, byteinfo.Length);
            ms.Position = 0;
            ms.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);

            return new FileStreamResult(ms, "application/pdf");
        }
        return null;
    }

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 07 '11 at 21:09

After further investigation I found that the issue is with Internet Explorer.
I researched the PDFObject on GitHub (https://github.com/pipwerks/PDFObject/issues/3) and it points to a Microsoft Support article (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/293792) titled Three GET Requests Are Sent When You Retrieve Plug-in Served Content.

MVC Filestream Multiple Calls

1 Answers1