Would you clear your browser cache to solve a website-specific problem?

In My Humble Opinion
1

A few years ago I had a problem with a website not updating, and was instructed by the site’s administrator to clear my cache, which I did.

Boy, did I regret it. All the websites I visit regularly no longer recognized me, and I basically had to rebuild everything from scratch. Not fun when you are trying to access financial accounts, insurance companies, etc.

I’ve heard similar stories from others. Since that one bad experience, I’ve had the sense never to clear my cache, and my digital life has proceeded fairly smoothly.

But lately, Hulu is being a problem. It should just recognize me (no one else uses it but me, although my son is signed up and has an account), asking me “who is viewing” and then telling me it “encountered a problem switching accounts” when I click my own name.

At first it suggested force-quitting my browser as a solution, which works. But this latest time, it told me to clear my cache. NO WAY.

I force-quit, and all is well for the moment, though given recent history I have a feeling Hulu will continue to be wonky. But it made me think - do other people clear their cache very often? Should I be more willing to do this?

2

Clearing your cache should not cause any serious problems.
Clearing your cookies may…

I wipe my cache and cookies every now and then, but Safari does a good job of remembering logins and passwords, so it’s never a problem.

3

Yes, be careful that you’re only clearing the cache, and not the cookies. You should have no problem. I do it all the time.

4

To expand on this a little bit…

Clearing cache is all-or-nothing but should cause no problems for other sites.

Clearing ALL cookies will cause the annoying problems that OP describes, but it’s easy to locate and delete just the cookies for one specific site, and that often fixes problems.

Clearing browsing history is annoying because google autofills based on your browsing history. Often it’s quicker to just type in the first couple of letters of a site than use the bookmark.

5

Okay, TIL … that there is a distinction between clearing cache and clearing cookies. Maybe I need to understand some nuances that currently escape me.

6

Cache is where images and website data are stored locally (on your computer) to save from having to download them over and over.
Cookies are small pieces of information that identify “session” information. Surprisingly, the web doesn’t provide a decent mechanism for storing data that identifies who you are and what you are looking at. Without cookie storage, every time you visited a website would be the first time.

7

And it’s definitely deleting ALL cookies that’s causing the annoyance that OP describes:

Deleting cache will only cause sites to load a little slower for a while, and probably won’t even be noticeable with today’s download speeds. It won’t make streams run any slower.

You can also find and selectively delete cookies just for the site that’s having problems.

8

This might be the universe gently hinting that you formulate a plan for doing this when you don’t have a choice (like if your computer breaks down completely and needs to be replaced)

9

To be utterly dense, what are you suggesting? I have indeed replaced a totally broken down computer subsequent to the cache clearing, and it was no problem - I took my Time Machine back up to the nice people at the Mac store where I bought a replacement, and they installed it in my new computer, and all was well.

10

In Chrome, at least, there are several different things that you have the option of clearing or not clearing:

  • Browsing history
  • Download history
  • Cookies and other site data
  • Cached images and files
  • Passwords and other sign-in data
  • Autofill form data
  • Site settings
  • Hosted app data
11

If you don’t currently use a credentials management solution (I use LastPass), that might be worth looking into; it turns the ‘not fun’ you mentioned regarding logging back into accounts into, well, not fun, but not a significant event - it’s made me feel a whole lot more comfortable with the idea of nuking my entire browser history and cache as a first step in troubleshooting weird web problems.

12

Ah okay, thanks.

(FWIW, I use Safari, not Chrome. I used to use Firefox as a back up - there was a time when not all websites worked properly with Safari - but I haven’t had any issues in several years.)

13

Another option that often works is trying an entirely different browser. I’m not an HTML expert, so I can’t explain why, but some browsers simply work better at a specific site than others. So, if you run into that kind of problem again, try a different browser first before considering flushing your cache.

14

I wrote and manage a 10,000 line website. A lot of Jscript files in there. Jscript gets cached.

When I change Jscript, I rename the file so a reload of the code into the browser is forced. So no need for the users to clear cache. It’s a work around really, and not hard for me to do.

There is another way to do this on the code side, but it frankly looks like a pain in the ass, and the site is getting long in the tooth and will be replaced in about a year (People are saying 3 months, but I know how that goes.)

15

At least some modern browsers on some modern OSes will let you nuke the stuff stored on a per-site basis. So if www.XYZ.com is having a bad case of the stupids, just delete its data, not everybody else’s data too.

In general, websites that need logins store the fact you logged in in a “cookie” stored locally on your cmputer and managed by your browser. Which cookie may or may not have an expiration date/time associated with it.

But you deleting the cookie amounts to the same thing as you clicking that website’s [Sign out] link. Which should entail no more hassle next time than re-entering your username and password. After which it will recognize you and all your site-local settings. “I basically had to rebuild everything from scratch” leaves me scratching my head as to what this might mean in the context of being logged out of a few (or even dozens of) websites.

16

That’s a good idea. I’ve also tried accessing the site via an incognito or private browsing window.

17

I’ve set my browser settings such that cookies are automatically removed when I close the browser, so I have no problem clearing cookies (and cache) to solve a problem - I’m doing it all the time anyway. It does mean that I have to login into every website each time I start the browser, but I’m using a password manager, so that only takes a few clicks and no typing.

18

I’ve only been following this thread intermittently, but I am a software engineer, working mostly on the server side, but with front end knowledge.

You can “clear” the cache for a single web page by pressing on Windows/*nix, Cntrl-F5 or on Mac Cmd-Shift-R

This tells the browser to get a new version of the page from the server without messing with cookies.

The OP story is missing some detail. The cache is just a local copy of the text and images (and, ok, some javascript) for a webpage. Clearing the cache would just mean slightly longer loading time.

Clearing the cookies is much more disruptive, potentially. Cookies store small amounts of data that may be used for many purposes, eg, “Session ID”, a concept that tells the webserver that the browser is logged in, etc, or, that the user has been served X advert, or many others.

Clearing cookies across the board is something I do regularly, but I use a password manager. That means, even if I kill all cookies and then have to login again, it is easy. I use LastPass but there are several others. These browser add-ons pre-fill the login screens with saved user/password combinations, which are in turn hidden behind a master password.

Because I work in a corporate world, and build websites or backends for websites, I clear my cache probably 2 to 300 times a day. I clear my cookies around 5 to 10 times a day.

The corporate has a large number of websites with different login needs, so killing my cookies means it is essential to get a Password manager.

I mentioned I use LastPass. I use it because it came up first when I googled it years ago, and now I have invested effort, I probably won’t change. But KeePass and 1Password are both good alternatives.

19

Which password manager was it that had the breach?

I just tend to use the built in password managers, in Chrome or in Firefox. Does Safari not offer to remember passwords?

20

Yes, Safari will remember passwords. I never use that function, perhaps out of an overabundance of caution.

Yeah, sorry. It was actually a REALLY long time ago (8-10 years), so I don’t remember much other than the hassle it caused. I will note, however, that the website admin who suggested to me what to do to solve the problem, as I later came to realize, was herself quite technologically ignorant - she really had no business being a website admin in the first place. She gave me instructions to press a certain combination of keys, I followed those instructions, and bad things happened. It did, however, solve the problem I had with her website.