Cache Issues
November 28th, 2007We’ve been getting a lot of email and comments from readers about the issue of being able to see new content on some pages of dooce.com, but not the homepage. We’ve seen this issue before whenever we’ve redeisgned/relaunched, so I thought I’d post this so I’d have a place I can send people as a starting point. This is a general tip/tutorial, but is meant to help those of you using Firefox and Internet Explorer as your main browser. Even if you don’t read dooce.com, hopefully this tip will help you with other sites you visit.
For Firefox users
First, go to the “Tools” menu item in Firefox (it’s the same on Mac/PC/Linux):
Choose “Clear Private Data”.
For most sites, you just need to empty your cache.
Select “Cache” in the list of checkboxes (don’t have anything else selected) and then click the button “Clear Private Data Now”.
Then go to the page you want and see if the correct content is displaying. You might need to delete your cache a few times, especially if you don’t wait 10 or so seconds after clicking the “Clear Private Data Now” button.
Firefox has a particularly intense cache in that it likes to hold onto the cache more tenaciously than other browsers.
If you don’t want to go through all of this, just go to the page you want to see correct content on and hold down the “Shift” key and click on the refresh icon in your browser while you are holding the “Shift” key down. You may have to do this several times.
If you want to be really daring, as a Firefox user you can install an Add-on called Firebug that allows you to disable your cache altogether.
For Internet Explorer users
IE7 users can empty their cache by going to the “Tools” menu and selecting “Internet Options” (same for IE6, but in IE7, the tools menu is down in the browser, not across the top):
And then select “Delete Files” as pictured:
Bonus! For Safari users
Select and hold the command (apple) and option keys and then press the “e” key. A dialog box pops up. Click “Empty”.
Questions? Better tips? Post a comment below and thanks for reading. o
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November 28th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
On the backend you can force the CSS/JS files to be pulled by simply appending a QueryString to your files, this tricks the browser to pull a new copy since the “string” has changed
@import “/modules/node/node.css”;
would become
@import “/modules/node/node.css?v=style”;
November 28th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Doesn’t Shift + Refresh do it?
November 28th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
sure but the above approach does not force the users to do anything at all!
November 28th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
@Alison, It should, but some people are saying it doesn’t. Plus, it’s good to clean out your cache periodically. This is mainly a post for me to link to and email it to people asking for help.
@manville, thanks!
November 28th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
I’ve used drupal before and had issues with drupal’s caching.
Here’ the best solution I’ve found:
http://drupal.org/node/5900 (comment #17)
November 28th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
sorry, comment #23, not #17 (update of the original patch in comment #17.
-David
November 28th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
That is very helpful!
Thanks again for getting back to me.
Ya learn something new every day!
November 28th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Jon,
Thanks so much for the tips…and your hard work. It is appreciated!
hope you’re feeling better and that the Hamilton/Armstrong clan had a good Thanksgiving.
November 29th, 2007 at 8:14 am
If you use Safari on Windows, the sequence is Ctrl+Alt+E and then click “Empty.”
November 29th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Hi Jon,
Thanks for replying. I’ve tried that and it still’s not working. I’ll continue troubleshooting cause I really do enjoy visiting the site!
November 29th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
@Norma, I did see this problem yesterday and last night and did not see it this morning. Shift-refresh 3 or 4 times.
November 29th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
@Norma: If you’re using IE, you may want to also try: Tools>Internet Options>Settings (the one NEXT TO “Delete”)>switch to “After every visit to the website” from “Automatically.”
Sorry…I work support for a dot com where I tell people to do this on a daily basis. I feel like such a geek now. Jon, you guys are doing a great job. Go team Armstrong!