# Straight Dope Website (Main Page) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 13, 2003, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-website-main-page/148390 "2003-01-13T22:15:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2003, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-website-main-page/148390/1 "2003-01-13T22:15:56Z")
I thought about putting this in ATMB, but it really isn’t about the _board_ so: For some bizarre reason, the front page will not update on this computer. “[www.straightdope.com](http://www.straightdope.com)” has been stuck on the same “Do birds pee?” column for months now. At first, I thought that the staff just stopped updating it, but now I think it may be a cookie problem on my end. Any ideas as to why I can’t get the current update of the SD front page? ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2003, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-website-main-page/148390/2 "2003-01-13T22:46:14Z")
Have you tried clearing your cache and temproary internet files? That worked on my parents computer a while ago when a webpage my sister was trying to view (to get her first term university grades!) wouldn’t update. If you’re using IE (especially the XP version), there’s a chance that the browser is set to something that causes it to load from chache and not fromt he actual server. There are a few threads around here about it - sorry I can’t tell you more since I had to more or less guess and I’m not even sure I did fix the problem at my parents place (At least not long term). Good luck! ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-website-main-page/148390/3 "2003-01-14T00:05:52Z")
When you hit CNTRL + Refresh you get the same old page, time after time? That forces your browser to go to the site and get the most recent page loaded there. Please try that and if it still doesn’t work, tell me what kind of operating system and browser you’re using and let’s try to find the problem here. your humble TubaDiva Administrator ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-website-main-page/148390/4 "2003-01-14T19:31:57Z")
CNTRL + Refresh that got it. Thanks, **Tuba** ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-website-main-page/148390/5 "2003-01-14T19:40:44Z")
Or Ctrl + F5, empties the cache. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-website-main-page/148390/6 "2003-01-15T11:24:44Z")
Uh, what does REFRESH by itself do? I was always under the assumption that it does exactly what you ( **TubaDiva** ) said Ctrl-REFRESH does. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-website-main-page/148390/7 "2003-01-15T11:55:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Balthisar \* > \*\*Uh, what does REFRESH by itself do? I was always under the assumption that it does exactly what you ( **TubaDiva** ) said Ctrl-REFRESH does. \*\* It’s meant to, but I’ve had times it didn’t work as well (Netscape worse than IE). However, if you hold down “SHIFT” and then hit the refresh button, this also tells the browser to uncache the entire page contents when reloading. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-website-main-page/148390/8 "2003-01-15T16:48:37Z")
““SHIFT” and then hit the refresh button” Ah, a hard refresh. Also check your browser preferences to see if you set them to automatically update a web page. You probably have it set to never update. ---
**Author:** ![Snowcarpet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowcarpet/32/257_2.png) [@Snowcarpet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowcarpet)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-website-main-page/148390/9 "2003-01-15T17:18:07Z")
Beeblebrox, I gotta ask the dumb question ('cos dumb q’s are all I can ask about complex computer problems) - Is this machine networked? Is there any kind of netnanny or firewall in place? If so, they are pretty efficient at screwing things up. They can cache some pages in such a way that they will _never_ update, or update only once a week, etc. Also, don’t write off some kind of server problem. Stranger things have happened. My personal favorite involves sites hosted on my home ISP (a small-scale operation.) My work network thinks that the IP addresses of ALL sites on my ISP’s server are apparently the same (due to some settings errors, I am sure.) It will try to load pieces/parts of different sites into the same browser window. Hysterically funny. Note: I am clueless as far as fixing such problems, but I have definitely experienced them, and have had the technical deities fix said problems.