Website changes don't show for a while?

[Chappers]

Hi,

 

Googled this, and although I find others complaining of it, it seems most people don't understand the problem, or simply don't know what causes it or the solution...

 

I edit my HTML code and then upload to the website server using an FTP client. Changes I've made, such as turning a table border on, resizing and re-uploading an image, etc., do not show on the website for at least 10 minutes.

 

I'm using IE. If, after making the changes to the HTML code and before IE shows those changes, I open Firefox to look at the website for the first time ever, even that doesn't show the latest changes. This would mean it's not local caching that's the trouble, wouldn't it?

 

So, what mechanism is responsible? Is the ISP likely caching and if so, can I do anything about that from my end? Can I add something to the web page code that forces the ISP to ignore its cache and grab the page from the server each and every time the page is requested?

 

Incidentally, CTRL+F5 makes no difference, nor pressing F12 and clearing browser cache and telling it to 'always refresh from server'.

 

I know some people create webpages offline and view them that way, but I am familiar with this way and prefer it. And some pages have PHP code which needs the server since I haven't got anything installed on the computer for it.

 

Any help much appreciated

[floridaflatlander]

I open Firefox to look at the website for the first time ever, even that doesn't show the latest changes.

 

What does that mean? "The first time ever, ever and for ever" or the first time since the edit? Away have you clicked refresh several times or clicked compatibility button to reload the css?

[Chappers]

It means what it says... because I dislike Firefox I do not use it ever. But, to test this problem, I launched it to look at my website to see if it was showing the changes that I'd made which weren't showing in IE.

 

I have not launched Firefox since purchasing the domain name and server space for my website, ergo it has not ever been used for this website before, so this was the first time ever that my website has been viewed in Firefox.

 

Clicked refresh more than a few times because it's extremely annoying that it won't update. Dozens of times is closer to the mark.

 

Yes, tried compatibility too, but no difference, still shows the 'old' version. If I wait more than 10 minutes or so, just one click of 'refresh' will load the new (edited) page.

[sunfighter]

A good way to check if things are being cached on the server is to just delete your main page, check it in IE. If it goes missing upload the newest and ck again.

If it stays then it's your server

[floridaflatlander]

If you've done all that I'd email or call the provider and see if they can help.

 

But I also agree with the sunfighter, I'd load a dummy page to delete. It's good to have just the facts when you talk to your provider

[floridaflatlander]

And ?????

[PFMaBiSmAd]

Most cheep web hosts use disk caching to try and get as many accounts onto one server as possible. This caching occurs in the operating system for the files that the web server reads. There would generally be nothing you can do that will affect such a cache, the concept being that you don't use a live server for actively making changes to your site. You only put final/finished code onto the live server.

 

There are many all in one Apache/Php/Mysql packages (xampp by by apachefriends.org is probably the most popular and current) that will install everything you need on a local computer for development purposes. Just make sure that you set php's error_reporting to E_ALL (or even better a -1) and display_errors to ON in your master php.ini so that php will report and display all the errors it detects during development and testing. I also would recommend making sure that output_buffering and short_open_tags are turned OFF in the master php.ini so that the code you develop will work on just about every live server you will encounter.