Browser is prompting to download a file instead of showing a webpage.

1.39h
PHP Version 5.2.17
MySQL Client API version 5.6.35
landera.com.au is the site

Hi, we have a Zencart site that lately seems to have a problem for some customers. When they click certain links they arent served up with a webpage or a proper result from their actions, they get a file download instead. Its like the server isnt doing what the PHP is telling it to do. I cant replicate this myself but Ive spoken to several people who have had the issue, no matter what browser or OS they tried. Its happening in the cart mostly I think, one particular case was clicking the X to delete an item in the cart, it was trying to download the X icon for the person. Another person was getting a php file as a download, when in the cart area.

Its running a theme with several modifications, but none have been added recently, which is when this started happening, in the last 2 months, the site has been as it is for about 2 years.

(Im working on a new site as I know 1.39h is old, but that is a few months away...)

Is this a known issue at all? Could it be server related? or perhaps ISP related?

Without having the same problem myself I cant test it out, we have several orders per day with no issue at all. Perhaps the server is running short on resources and it happens then? Its on a VPS with several other websites, I have allocated this site max resources via Litespeed (I think thats what it was called in WHM)

Not related to any "known issues" or "bugs" with Zen Cart as far as I can recall.

Given that you've got a very old PHP version (although that's required for your very old Zen Cart version), it could be that your hosting company has installed custom newer versions of PHP that could be selected, and something might be amuck with their configuration of that. Just a guess.

Usually when a PHP file gets downloaded instead of "run", it's because the server's PHP engine didn't fire up for that "click" ... and that happens because of server configuration issues .... could be incorrect .htaccess directives, could be insufficient PHP threads, could be overloaded memory, could be a number of things. Could be it happens only when there's a ton of traffic hitting the site, like multiple search-engine spiders indexing while your customers are shopping, combined with a small VPS with insufficient resources to power that traffic volume.

IMO the best approach is to find out exactly how to trigger it on-demand, and then ask your hosting company to investigate what's going on.

Thanks for the reply, Ill look at the hosting side of thing with my hosting support team.