As mentioned before you sould sure binmode, but I believe you should also use read like this:
open(DLFILE, "<$file_location/$id") || Error('open', 'file');
binmode
print "Content-Type:application/x-download\n";
print "Content-Disposition: attachment;filename=$filename[0]\n\n";
my $data;
while (read DLFILE, $_, 1024) {
   print $data;
}

[download]
close (DLFILE) || Error ('close', 'file');

In reply to Re: Improving a File Download Script by neosamuri
in thread Improving a File Download Script by awohld

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