Empty response when responseType is `blob` or `arraybuffer`.

Summary

Axios can’t handle blob and arraybuffer responseType. It returns empty oject in response.data.

For example, downloading of PDF file:

axios.get('/file.pdf', {
      responseType: 'arraybuffer',
      headers: {
        'Accept': 'application/pdf'
      }
}).then(response => {
    // response.data is an empty object
    const blob = new Blob([response.data], {
      type: 'application/pdf',
    });
    FileSaver.saveAs(blob, 'file.pdf');
});

The contend of downloaded file is:

[object Object]

Is it a bug?

Context

• axios version: v0.18.0
• Environment: node v9.5.0, chrome 64, archlinux

[Axnyff]

Here is my full working code:

const FileSaver = require('file-saver');
const axios = require('axios');
axios.get('/file.pdf', {
      responseType: 'arraybuffer',
      headers: {
        'Accept': 'application/pdf'
      }
}).then(response => {
    console.log(response);
    // response.data is an empty object
    const blob = new Blob([response.data], {
      type: 'application/pdf',
    });
    FileSaver.saveAs(blob, Math.random());
});

I added the Math.random part to make sure I was generating a new pdf. Can you provide more info on your server, there might be something here that is throwing axios off.

Here are some more picture of what the headers look like and the content of the file:

[renetanikolova]

How do you catch an error if the request fails? Since we have: responseType: “blob” - the method expects blob object and if the request fails, that’s what I get in the error.response object:

and there is no error message available there. So, how do you handle the error, or you just throw an error with the same message every time, like “Error occurred while generating the pdf file.”?