Wikipedia talk:Bypass your cache/Archive 1

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Isn't that just refreshing the page? I thought clearing your cache involved actually going to the cache folder and deleting the files. Angela 22:31, Sep 16, 2003 (UTC)

When you hold shift it temporarily ignores the cache when reloading the page, so it's as good as. CGS 22:35, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC).

Ok, but it might be misleading to suggest this is clearing your cache. Shouldn't the page be called temporarily ignoring the cache or something more sensible than that.

Should this go in the page, or is it not worth it because you don't actually need to clear your cache? Angela

IE6: Click on 'Tools' and choose the 'General' tab. In the 'Temporary Internet files' section, click 'Delete Files'. You will then get a dialogue box asking if you want to delete just the temporary files, or all offline content'. Choose either and click 'OK'. Then click 'OK' to exit the options.

Mozilla 1.4: From the Edit menu, choose 'Preferences'. Expand the 'Advanced' options and choose 'Cache'. Click the button called 'Clear Cache'. You will need to restart Mozilla for this to take effect.

How about calling the page Wikipedia:Bypass your cache - it has the same catchy memorability to it (and the ability to come in the middle of a sentence, e.g. "This may be a temporary error, could you [[Wikipedia:bypass your cache|]] and see if it goes away..."), but sounds (rightly) less drastic. As for including the instructions for clearing the whole cache, perhaps we could make clearer that this is for extreme circumstances only - and point out that this is likely to make just about everything you do on the Web slower for several days, while the cache is re-populated. - IMSoP 19:16, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've made the move, and rewritten the page, hopefully adding more clarity than fluff, although I'm often accused of verbosity. There were only two redirects to fix, so if anyone disagrees with the new name, it shouldn't be too hard to change back.

Incorrect

I've suspected for a long time that the instructions for Mozilla on this page were actually incorrect, but I've only just got round to checking the built-in Help. I can now confirm that Ctrl-R is a normal Reload, whereas Ctrl-Shift-R is a "Force Reload". The relevant section of the online help looks something like this:

Command	Windows	Macintosh	Linux
Reload	Ctrl+R	Cmd+R	Ctrl+R
Force Reload (not from cache)	Ctrl+Shift+R	Cmd+Shift+R	Ctrl+Shift+R

The exact function of the "Reload" toolbar button is less clear, but the following certainly implies that you should hold down Shift to cause a Force Reload:

To refresh the current page and reset all changes made (if the page contains a form), hold down the Shift key and click the Reload button, or press Ctrl+Shift+R (Cmd+Shift+R on Mac OS).

Can everyone who sees this please correct the misconception that Ctrl-R is a Force Reload anywhere else they may encounter it. Thank you.

Checking the page, I see that the instructions for IE also imply that the button on the toolbar will always perform a Hard Refresh (as I believe MS calls it); this seems unlikely, but I'm booted into Linux at the moment, so I can't access IE's built-in help to check. If no-one gets there first, I'll have a look tomorrow. - IMSoP 19:16, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Tested, and fixed. - IMSoP 19:02, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

More browsers needed!

We could really do with some instructions for non-IE, non-Moz browsers. At minimum, we should be able to tell Safari and Opera users how to do a Force Reload. If you have access to either of these browsers, please add the information. Be careful to test that you are not just doing a normal Reload (especially when using the toolbar; help manuals rarely seem to list the procedure for this). - IMSoP 19:02, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I just added Opera.--ThomasK 05:54, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think the opera information is quite accurate. I have found no way to tell opera to request a non-cached version from the wikipedia servers. I'd be interested to know if there is one. Lupin 02:44, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I've confirmed this experimentally - I can only make Opera do a "normal" refresh, whatever extra keys I hold down (as evidenced by my Apache log showing "304" reponses, which means "not changed", i.e. use your cache, as opposed to the "200" which would show up if the file had actually been resent). I'll change the instructions on the page to a note that no method seems to exist. - IMSoP 18:34, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Synchronizing

People are mostly good with this, but just as a reminder: MediaWiki:Clearyourcache should be kept in sync with the directions on this page. --David Iberri | Talk 19:21, Feb 21, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, but the real nightmare is keeping it synchronised with the other couple of hundred wikis (not to mention all the non-Wikimedia installations out there). With admin rights required to edit them (reasonably enough), we really need some solid method for dealing with updated interface messages... - IMSoP 16:26, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)