If you are running a website with a great number of visitors then you can easily encounter caching issues. In this case, you need to be aware of the process of troubleshooting and fixing WordPress caching issues You don’t need to worry because we will be guiding you through the entire process and helping you get rid of these issues.
One of the most effective ways of decreasing the loading time of your web pages and quickly bringing content to your visitors is by using caching on your website. This method has its own issues which can make it difficult for you to view the changes made to your website immediately.
Are you wondering what would happen if your cache is full? Well, most of the problems arise from the cache being full. If your cache gets too large then you might face delays in loading and the overall speed will be slowed down.
This can make you encounter an unexpected error and make it difficult for you to immediately view the changes you made to your website.
Therefore, you need to clear your WordPress cache so that you and your users can see the updates you did right away on your website. This article will guide you in troubleshooting, fixing, and clearing your WordPress cache through WordPress cache plugins, Chrome browser, Cloudflare content delivery network (CDN), and Ezeoic ad network.
What Are The Common WordPress Caching Issues?
If used correctly, caching increases the speed of your WordPress website and results in faster page load times, and decreases the load on your server.
However, if you have not configured your caching correctly or did not clear your WordPress cache on time, you may run into WordPress caching issues that may need your immediate attention.
Steps to Resolve the WordPress Caching issues:
Here are some of the common problems you might face on your WordPress website.
- Using the Google Chrome web browser and seeing the same content after you make some changes on your website.
- Installing the WordPress cache plugin on your WP website and not being able to clear your cache properly or running into plugin compatibility issues.
- Using a CDN and it’s not serving the updated web pages.
- Installing an incompatible cache plugin with your ad network.
- Using a cloud-based hosting server platform for your website and experiencing WordPress caching issues.
How To Diagnose WordPress Cache Issues?
If you are facing caching issues on your WordPress website, you can use the step-by-step methods in this article to diagnose ad troubleshoot your issue. Let’s take a look at these steps.
Local Caching Issue
Sometimes, when you change your WordPress website design or content, you won’t see the change right away in your Chrome browser. You might think that something is wrong with your website or that your hosting server is unable to serve the updated content.
However, the problem can be as simple as you have not cleared your Chrome browser cache and it is serving the previously-stored cached version of your web page on your computer or mobile device.
To fix this issue, you either need to refresh your page many times or you can clear your Chrome browser cache by the following method.
- Open your Chrome browser.
- On the top right-hand side, click on the three dots.
- Hover over the “More tools” option from the drop-down menu and click on Clear Browsing Data.
- A pop-up screen will emerge that will give you the time range to clear your browsing history from the last 24 hours, 7 days, or last 4 weeks, or you can choose to clear all your cookies.
- Below the Time range, you have the option to select from three checkboxes.
- The first check box clears only your browsing history and browsing data.
- The second check box clears the cookies and other site data and you may sign out of most websites automatically.
- The third check box clears cached images/files. The next time you visit a website that you previously visited, its images may take a little time to load.
- Choose your time frame, select all three checkboxes, and then click on Clear Data.
- Wait for a few seconds to let the process complete and restart your Chrome browser.
- Lastly, visit your WordPress website. Now, you’ll be able to see the changes you made recently on your website.
Other than caching issues, you can face many common problems and for that, we have prepared a guide for you on easy fixes to the most common WordPress issues.
WP-Rocket Caching Issue
WP-Rocket is one of the best WordPress cache plugins. It builds your WordPress in the background so that your users are always served a cached version of your page.
You can clear your website cache with a single click while using WP-Rocket. Go to your WordPress dashboard and go to your installed plugins. Next, select WP-Rocket and go to its Settings. Click on the Clear Cache button under the WP-Rocket’s dashboard to clear all cached files.
If you are having a caching issue with WP-Rocket, make sure that you meet the minimum requirements to install the plugin. Secondly, remove all traces of the previous caching plugin within the wp-content cache folder. Also, remember to log out from your website to see its cached version.
How To Check If WP-Rocket is Caching Your Web Pages?
You can use the following methods to check if WP-Rocket is caching your website.
- Log out from your website.
- Open your webpage. Right-click and click on the View page source and scroll to the bottom.
- Verify that you see a text in green color that shows the WP-Rocket cache footprint
- Next, download and install the Wappalyzer Chrome extension. Visit your website/web page and check if WP-Rocket is listed under the cached tools. This will verify that your caching is working.
The last step is to look for your cached folders and files on your server. First, make sure that you are logged out and then visit your several web page so that they can get cached. Use the FTP application or File Manager in your web hosting control panel and go to Public→ wp-content→ Cache → wp-rocket. You should see another folder with your domain name. In this particular folder, you can see your cached HTML files along with your other website pages.
W3 Total Caching Issue
W3 total is one of the favorite WordPress plugins for many website owners. However, it has its downsides and things can go wrong with it sometimes.
Most of the time, users face installation and cache setting issues on W3 Total Cache. Let’s take a look at a few of these problems and find solutions to fix them.
If you are doing a fresh W3 Total Cache plugin install on a new WordPress website, it’s highly unlikely that you will face any problems. On the other hand, if you have deleted a plugin and then installed W3C, it can have problems overwriting previous plugin settings.
To fix this issue, enable all options in the Browser cache tab under W3C Settings except leave blank for the following entries in the image.
Sometimes, you may get an error with W3 Total Cache that page caching is not available. You can fix this issue by manually deleting all the previous caching plugin entries and resetting the .htaccess file.
Another common issue with W3C is that even if you log out, the admin bar still shows on top. To fix this issue, disable the “Cache pages for logged-in users” option under the W3C settings.
If your website theme uses the call php_flush() function, you may see garbage characters on your web pages while using the W3 Total Cache plugin. The fix is simple, you have to remove the call function as you are forcing the plugin to send the cached files before the essential elements.
Comet Cache Caching Issue
Comet cache helps you speed up your WordPress website. The Comet Cache plugin caching issues happen when you are not using it on a clean WordPress install.
If you think that Comet Cache is not caching your web pages, you can look for the following problems and fix them.
Comet Cache is incompatible with the following plugins. It is best to remove or deactivate these plugins before using Comet Cache.
- CSS-JS Booster
- Force Gzip
- Mobble
- Remove WMPU Dashboard Notification Nag
- Hazel Theme
- Plainview Activity Monitor
Secondly, some plugins strip HTML comments from your source page. Therefore, it would seem to you that Comet Cache is not working on your website. To fix this, disable those plugins that are used to minify HTML, purge your cache and check again if it solves the problem.
If you are using a cache plugin other than Comet Cache, this can cause a conflict and your WordPress website may be displayed as broken. Therefore, it is recommended that you always use one caching plugin at a time and delete all traces of your previous caching plugin.
Sometimes, Comet Cache shows your mobile website theme on your desktop and your desktop theme on your mobile website. It means that Comet cache is caching your mobile theme and showing it to your desktop users.
To fix this issue, tell Comet Cache to disable caching for mobile devices. Depending on your browser, specify user agent exclusion patterns under Comet Cache Settings. The following figure shows an example of that.
Autoptomize Caching Issue
The autoptimize caching plugin is another popular WordPress plugin to clear your website cache. It can optimize your website from the ground up.
The Autoptomize plugin is very easy to install and set up. All you have to do is install and activate it on your WordPress website.
To clear your WordPress website cache:
- Go to the Autoptimize plugin in your WordPress dashboard
- Go to the Settings page
- Select the Maximum cache file size to clear the cache automatically when the limit is reached
However, quite a few users face the issue that their website cache fills up very quickly with Autoptimizer. You can deactivate the “Aggregate inline JS” and “Aggregate inline CSS” to counter this issue. Also, you can exclude JS variables that can change on a per-page basis.
Alternatively, you can use the Cache Enabler plugin along with the Autoptimzer to clear your website cache automatically. To minimize the load on your server, you can use the options on Cache Enabler to clear your cache when a comment is made or a new post is published. You can also set the time limit for your cache to expire as well.
By using these plugins together, you can minimize a great deal of load on your server and your WordPress website will function much faster.
Breeze Caching Issue
Breeze is a caching plugin that is launched by Cloudways. It aims to decrease web page load times and perform caching on multiple levels. Also, Breeze supports CDN integration and has a built-in Varnish cache. Even if Varnish is not installed on your server, Breeze will leverage the internal caching mechanism.
To install the Breeze cache plugin for WordPress and clear your cache:
- Go to your WordPress dashboard and select Add New Plugin
- Search for Breeze, install and activate it
- Open the Breeze Plugin Settings
- Go to Basic options and check the HTML and CSS boxes under Minification
- Also, check the browser cache box
- Under Advanced options, select CSS for group files
- Finally, Hit on Clear Cache
Breeze is a great caching plugin. However, a few users reported that Breeze is caching all pages even if the “Enable Cache For Logged In Users” is off. Some users also reported that Breeze cache breaks their blog archives and post comments.
To fix these issues, disable the “Enable Cache For Logged In Users” option and then clear the Breeze cache again.
Secondly, your website can break if another plugin is conflicting with the Breeze plugin. Deactivate your plugins one by one and see which plugin is causing the conflict. Delete that plugin or use another one that works with Breeze.
Cloudflare Caching Issue
Cloudflare is a popular CDN (Content Delivery Network). This cache lasts for 2 hours in the free plan, 1 hour in the Pro plan, and 30 minutes in the Business plan. You can purge your cache by logging in to the Cloudflare dashboard and using the following methods.
- Purge cache by single URL.
- Purge cache by single file.
- Clear everything.
Furthermore, you can clear your caches by single URL, single file, or all files through the Cloudflare APIs as well.
Quite a few users faced issues that Cloudflare is not caching their content. A few other users also find it difficult to clear their WordPress website cache and minify their code.
All of these issues can manifest if you are using Cloudflare to cache your website and you are caching it locally on the server too. While using Cloudflare, you don’t need another caching plugin. Therefore, choose either Cloudflare caching or use another WP Plugin.
Also, you can encounter different problems if you use Cloudflare to optimize or minify your WordPress website code. It is a great idea to use an optimization plugin to minify your website code along with Cloudflare caching your website.
While troubleshooting Cloudflare caching issues, disable your optimization plugin and purge every level of your website cache. Afterwards, wait a few minutes and see if any caching issue persists.
Varnish Caching Issue
This cache directly listens to requests of specific content all the time instead of your web server.
Varnish cache the requests in PHP that come for the first time. As a result, your WordPress website loads faster, and the performance of your applications increases.
If you have a WordPress website and you cache your content with Varnish cache, you might have faced a Varnish cache server error 503. This error happens when the Varnish cache can not reach the back-end server. This can either be due to too many requests, timeouts, and the length of the cache tags.
To fix these issues:
- Check whether the port, original server, or HTTP are operating correctly
- Make sure your Apache server listens to port 8080
- Add correct values for .first_byte_timeout and .connect_timeout
- Increase the default cache length by using http_resp_hdr_len and http_resp_size parameters
Ezoic Caching Issue
Ezoic is a great platform for publishers that provides them automated website intelligence for their content, ads, etc.
The Ezoic cloud caching increases your WordPress website speed and configures your cache settings correctly by serving the cached content faster. Ezoic follows any pre-existing rules for caching. However, if no rules are set, Ezoic default caching settings becomes active.
You can clear your WordPress site cache with a click of a button with Ezoic. Furthermore, you can choose to clear your single URL cache or site-wide cache.
Using a caching plugin on your website along with Ezoic may cause a conflict. At the time of this writing, W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, and WP Rocket Cache are the known caching plugins that can work with Ezoic.
If you have installed another caching plugging other than the compatible plugins, you may experience caching and performance problems. Therefore, use only the compatible WordPress caching plugins with Ezoic.
To fix Ezoic cache refresh issues and make content update faster on your WordPress website:
- Update your cache setting values to purge your cache faster. You can manually configure the default cache age from 30 days (2592000 seconds) to 1 day (86400 seconds)
- Purge cache by URL to update content faster
- Set a page-level rule to cache specific URLs for a shorter amount of time
- Exclude specific URLs from Ezoic caching so that they can always default to that specified on the origin server
Conclusion
WordPress caching issues can negatively impact the performance and speed of your website. We tried to help you diagnose and provide you with step-by-step fixes for your local caching, plugin caching, CDN caching, hosting service caching, and ad network caching issues. Good Luck!!
