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my dilema:
I upload a completly new page onto the server (ftp is same as always, nice and fast) and the page loads perfectly, I then edit the page from my hdd and upload it again, I look at the page and it hasn't changed at all. I then find about an hour or so later that the page is updated.
Is this a server problem? everything else seems fine, all my other pages load perfectly, it's just when I try and update something.
> Thanks Garin I'm pretty sure it all works now, must have been the ISP
> setting some new stuff up.
> Still can't understand why a new file would upload properly and an
> updated file wouldn't... *shrugs*
Ok...
You connect to your isp and you enter a url in your browser. If your isp runs some sort of proxy server for handling browser then this proxy server will get the page for you and then return it to you. But it will also keep a copy of that page itself. If click refresh on your browser, then your page requests gets sent to the proxy server again. It sees that its already got a copy of that page itself thats only a few minutes old. So it just returns to you its copy of the page without bothering to go grab the page from the actual site where the page is hosted. And they'll be some arbitrary time out value on everything it caches, so once a page is eg 60 minutes old, then next time somebody requests that page it goes and grabs a new version.
One isp I've noticed web caching on is freeserve, but only sometimes. Would appear to be a matter of luck on connecting whether you a connection that uses it.
Still can't understand why a new file would upload properly and an updated file wouldn't... *shrugs*
I get this problem and a tech support guy I was talking to said that my updated page will always take time to get replicated around the various web servers.
> cheers Garin, isn't there an easier way though? ;)
Its out of your hands somewhat how your isp behaves. There are ways around the isp cache, I think for instance you can force it to retrieve the latest version. No clue how though. :)
But I think such solutions aren't any easier that what I suggested, ie put a ? after the link and type anything to make it like its a new page its not got before.
If you're using a scripting language for your pages, something I tend to do is generate a random number and append it all links on the page to make sure web caches always get the latest versions. Of course that doesn't help with refresh... :)
> Most hosters do it, just depends on the amount of time between the
> refreshes...
Guess all the web hosting companies I've used and worked for must be in the minority then. :)
The most likely cause I think is that its your isp caching results of your browsing. So when you request the page its just retrieving it from the isp's cache as opposed to going to the actual site and retrieving the page.
You can test it by adding a query string to your url. If your page doesn't change even though you've uploaded a new version, trying adding something to url eg, you wanted
http://www.fogtest.com/test.html
try
http://www.fogtest.com/test.html?test=true
Of course, depends how smart the cache is. :)
If what you say is true everything would be updated on the hour not just the updated ones.