Download Database Is Dumping Into Browser Window

[archiebald]

Running fully updated SMF 2.0.11 in English & Japanese on a dedicated server under Windows 2008 with IIS 7, PHP 5.6 and MySQL 5.6
Mods are;
Message Preview On Hover 1.8
SMF Notify Group 2.2
Ohara Youtube Embed 1.0
Spoiler Tag 0.7.2a
Tiny Portal 1.107
Users Online Today 2.0.2
I am running the default theme.

Forum is running fine, very rarely get any error reports in the log.

Just recently while trying to download a backup of the database, the file does not download but after 15 seconds or so, the whole file opens as a text file in my browser window.  If I enable Gzip, the same thing happens except that the test is scrambled to unrecognizable characters.  Same thing is happening in 3 separate browsers, Firefox, Chrome and IE.

I had this happening a couple of years before but cannot for the life of me remember the fix.  Any clues?

[Kindred]

That usually has to do with you you have your browser set up...  However...  You should not be using the internal database backup function anyway. Use the host-side or phpmyadmin backup functionality.

[archiebald]

Forgive me for being an old stick in the mud, but why would you say this?  "You should not be using the internal database backup function anyway"  And I'm asking in terms of;
a) If what you say is the conventional wisdom, then why is it there?
b) Would appreciate if you can explain the potential harm in using it?

Also, while I agree that individual browsers can have their own issues, I took the effort to try it on three different browsers and the same issue occurs - so what could I have possibly done to cause the issue.  My Firefox setup has many add-ons, but IE and Chrome are straight out of the box since I don't use them except for the odd page that doesn't like Firefox.

Since this is a dedicated server, we don't have any host-side software such as cPanel setup.  I generally access via RDP and zip the database then ftp it back home, but I want a more simple method that I can hand over to a an assistant who has even less knowledge of the server than I do.

Not trying to be difficult here, just trying to understand.

[Illori]

the backup in the admin panel is known to give users an incomplete backup and there is nothing to tell them that it is not complete, so we dont recommend its use.

http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Backup

[Kindred]

as for "why is it there"...    as of the next version (2.1), it is no longer there....

[archiebald]

Illori,
Thanks - I had never seen that before.

Kindred,
Okay - cool thanks.