IE6 cannot download javascript files over HTTPS

I'm totally stumped here, so any ideas would be appreciated.

I have a RichFaces application, which recently became non-functional when used from IE6. The problem began when I included the following line in my main template:

<a4j:loadScript src="resource://jquery.js"/>

This results in the following generated HTML:

<script src="/AgriShare/a4j/g/3_3_3.Finaljquery.js.jsf" type="text/javascript"></script>

By "non-functional" I mean that pages no longer load, b/c the first page appears to hang the browser for a long time, and then all references to jQuery say that the object was not defined. Eventually this appears to put IE6 in a state where further clicks do nothing.

After a lot of trial and error I have established the following:

开发者_开发问答

• The app still works in Chrome, Firefox and IE8
• The app still works in IE6, if I switch to HTTP. So, the problem appears to be related to HTTPS, which I can't dispose of.
• I further narrowed down the problem by trying to manually request 3_3_3.Finaljquery.js.jsf in IE6 address bar. It asks me if I want to save the file (so it can see it is there), but when I say 'Save', it hangs for about 5 seconds and then says:

Internet Explorer cannot download 3_3_3.Finaljquery.js.jsf from [host_name].

The connection with the server was reset.

• Doing the same download over HTTP succeeds.
• Gradually reducing the size of the file, I noticed that the download eventually succeeds over HTTPS, if I get the files size below ~ 110KB. There is no specific size it works at though. I tried the same trick with prototype.js and it worked at a different size value.

I can't trace the SSL session, b/c I cannot get access to the certificate's private key, so now I have absolutely no clue what to try next.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

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Try using Fiddler for debugging. It can handle SSL.

You might also want to consider hosting the server yourself and taking a look at the server log.

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The problem was solved by turning off compression of javascript files in Web Cache.

Sounds like the problem might be related to this: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;327286