[users@httpd] Back button in IE and lost data

[Gareth Kirwan <gb...@thermeoneurope.com>]

This is more than likely the wrong place to ask this question, but I'm
hoping that I'll get an answer.

I have a page that POSTS to a second page (HTTPS).
If there is an error on the second page and we want to take them back to the
first page then we are aware of the choices:

1) Tell them to press the back button on their browser to fix the problem
2) Give them a button which submits hidden form data sent to page 2 back to
page 1 so that page 1 has all the data that was sent to it and the user can
fix it
3) Automatically do #2 and show them where they went wrong.

I'm interested firstly in why #1 fails in certain circumstances ( Though I
know that #2 and #3 are the right thing to do, and I know how to achieve
them, before this gets taken off into the wrong direction )
This will always be an HTTPS post.

When page 1 and 2 are both in a frame, and you press back on page 2, page1
doesn't display but IE deems it fit to show a
" Warning: page has expired " message.
When you hit f5, as it suggests, you automatically loose your data.

Mozilla does not have this drawback, and will DTRT, showing page 1 with the
data as it was when it was submitted.

I figured that maybe some headers would get IE to stop being so secure about
it's SSL data.
I added a Cache-Control: max-age=5 and Expires = 5 minutes away.
However IE still throws the warning.

Any ideas ?

Gareth Kirwan
Programming & Development,
Thermeon Europe Ltd,
gbjk@thermeoneurope.com
Tel: +44 (0) 1293 864 303
Thermeon Europe e-Card: gbjk