Problems seeing updates?

The most common question received by web staff concerns caching – or more generally why updates are not appearing for users. The web cache is the storage of website files and data so that this data can be readily pulled again for repeated web visits while using less computing power and bandwidth. Caching makes browsing the internet much faster.

For the SAU website, there are two sets of cache, one of the website server side and another on the user’s side locally.  When a change is published to the web, the server is configured to flush the cache of the page that has changed, thereby encouraging the browser to also refresh it’s locally stored content.  This works most of the time, but sometimes it doesn’t.

Server cache

SAU employees that help manage their departmental websites can clear their site’s server cache manually. When logged into WordPress, there’s a top admin bar menu item called “WP Rocket” – hover over that and click clear cache.  To ensure that this process was effective, open up an incognito or private tab (Ctl+Shift+N) and navigate to the site. You should see the published change.

Browser cache

Browsers are smart, and the more often you visit a page, the more likely it is to store its content. This is why staff members tend to have aggressively locally cached pages for their own department. Typically refreshing the page (f5 or the refresh icon in the browser) in quick succession two or three times will force the browser to pull in the new content from the server. If not, it may require clear temporary internet files through the browser settings. Opening an incognito/private window (Ctl+Shift+N) and checking the page is a quick way to confirm if the issue is local or the server cache. If the change appears in a private window, but not a regular browser window, this indicates that the old version of the page is still stored in your browser’s cache.

How to clear temporary internet files

Each type of browser has a different process for accessing and deleting cache, but most allow for the Control + Shift + Delete shortcut (for Mac users, Command + Shift + Delete). This combination of keys will present a popup window that will allow you to clear your temporary internet files.  Indiana University has extensive documentation about this process in detail for different browsers and devices.

If you continue to have problems seeing an update, please contact Josh Jenkins at jdjenkins@saumag.edu.