Cache Issues

Cache Issues

We’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):
071128-firefoxmenu.gif

Choose “Clear Private Data”.

For most sites, you just need to empty your cache.
071128-firefoxclearcache1.gif

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):
071128-ieinternetoptions.gif

And then select “Delete Files” as pictured:
071128-ie7deletethis.gif

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.