response()->download($pathToFile); not working

The command is expecting a local file path and not a URL

Some options here https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38791635/download-a-file-in-laravel-using-a-url-to-external-resource

Thank you, @Snapey - but none of those options seem to be working. All I could get was the file contents in the response; but I want to force download on user's browser.

Wow, you tried all those quick?

Even the ugly, slow one where the file is downloaded to the local server first should work.

Yep; been at it for about 2 hours. Downloading to local server, unfortunately isn't an option. Is there other way?

Else, I'll have to store the files and perform cleanup through cron. But I'd rather opt for a simpler solution.

I tried the html5 'download' attribute as well. It doesn't work. Files open in new browser tab instead of downloading.

Update: I'm trying to get this to work -

    public function download(Resource $resource) {
        // Force download of the file
        $this->file_to_download   = 'https://data.domain.com/downloads/' . $resource->file_name;
        return response()->streamDownload(function () {
            echo file_get_contents($this->file_to_download);
        }, 'file-name.extension');
    }

This does get the contents of the file, but doesn't force download on user's end.

I'm following Laravel's example from this -https://laravel.com/docs/5.6/responses#streamed-downloads

Have you seen this one https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44131179/laravel-how-to-create-a-download-response-for-an-external-file

check all the comments also

Thanks. Would 'stream' be a good way to download, if the files are say 50 MB + ? Most of the files will be ZIP and PDFs. I think it's okay to let PDFs open in a new tab; and ZIP files will trigger a dialog anyway.

Update:

Finally decided to download the files to local server and then delete after send. I think the following should work; but it doesn't --

public function download(Resource $resource) {
        // Force download of the file
        $file_to_download   = 'https://data.domain.com/downloads/' . $resource->file_name;
        $temp_file_location =   public_path('/tmp_files/' . $resource->file_name);
        copy($file_to_download, $temp_file_location);
        return response()->download($temp_file_location);
    }

The tmp_files is the location under 'public' folder.

Here's the overall flow -

1. Ajax request is made which triggers the download method on my controller (above)

2. The response to the above request actually works (can see the file contents in the 'Response' , in Chrome's inspector). But the download never begins.

What's wrong?

Can anyone help? Above code should work; but it doesn't. I've no clue why. Would really appreciate some help.