Cross Browser Differences: File uploads

I've been working on an issue with file uploads not working properly when being passed to an ASP.NET MVC Controller in IE8. This code works fine in Firefox and Chrome, but strangeness happens in IE:


public FileUploadJsonResult ExcelImport()
{
FileUploadJsonResult result = new FileUploadJsonResult();
HttpPostedFileBase hpf = Request.Files[0] as HttpPostedFileBase;
if (hpf.ContentLength == 0)
return new FileUploadJsonResult { Data = new { message = "File contained no data" } };
String timeStampedFile = Path.GetFileName(hpf.FileName).Insert(hpf.FileName.IndexOf('.'),"_"+DateTime.Now.ToFileTimeUtc());
string savedFileName = Path.Combine(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory + "budgetImports", timeStampedFile);
hpf.SaveAs(savedFileName);
try
{
result = ProcessFile(savedFileName, Request["budgetId"]) as FileUploadJsonResult;
}
catch (ArgumentException e)
{
this.Response.StatusCode = 500;
this.Response.StatusDescription = System.Net.HttpStatusCode.BadRequest.ToString();
Response.Write(e.Message);
result = Json(new { message = e.Message, stackTrace = e.StackTrace }) as FileUploadJsonResult;
}
return result;
}


Turns out, IE8 was sending the whole file path to the controller, as opposed to just the file name. This seems to contradict this post.

I'm working within a company intranet, so it may be a local policy. I'm also solving a fairly complicated use case using the jQuery Form plugin to do an AJAX file upload, which may play a factor. But if you run into errors with ajax file uploads seemingly working in FF and Chrome but mysteriously failing in IE, this may be why.