Q:

PHP Connection: Close

I have a PHP application that I have been having some problems with, some pages take a very long time to load.
After a couple of hours I have figured out the problem, but I have no idea how to fix it.
The problem seems to be with the header Connection: keep-alive. I used a Firefox plugin called "Tamper Data" which allows you to "tamper" with the headers and stuff. Once I used that tool to change the connection header to Connection: close the delay on some pages stopped.
How, in PHP, can I make sure that the Connection: close header is used?
I tried putting header("Connection: close"); at the top of a PHP file, and reloaded the page. It still sends the Connection: keep-alive header, not the one I am trying to send.
How can I achieve what I am trying to do?
EDIT: I have just realized that on this subdomain the content-length header is not sent at all for most pages. It is only sent right after a form submission followed by a redirect.
EDIT 2:
This is the page: http://volunteer.essentialtransit.com/job/13/just-a-test-at-eta/
Click the "Apply now" link and fill out some random txt, you don't need to attach a file. Notice when you are redirected back to the "job" detail page that it will take a very long time to load.

A:

So, I determined what the problem was, and found a work-around to this issue.
The script that processed the form just processed the input and redirected to another page, but it actually didn't output anything. On most pages on the site the content-length header is either not sent, or is set at the correct value. But for some reason when posting to a page, and then redirecting without the processing script outputting anything to the browser, the content-length was being set at 0.
I tried setting the content-length myself, but didn't have much luck, as it didn't seem to make a difference.
So, all I did was make the processing script have some output. So now when the form is submitted the processing script outputs a page with a redirect script (and a 'click to continue' message just in case) that leads to the correct page. So while this adds a very brief delay between the form submission and the correct page being seen it causes the content-length to be set correctly and the problem is solved.
While this is not an ideal solution it is manageable and makes the script work.

