Problem with website updates

[Kieron]

Hello Folks,

Sorry if this has been asked before - I have had a good look through the archive, without success.

I have set up my website using the standard template. On the Internet Settings page Include Standard Files and Include Standard Images are both ticked. Auto update is ticked and set to 5 minutes. Realtime is enabled and set to 3 seconds. The problem is that although the updates are being sent to my server, when I open the website the current conditions are always out of date. I need to hit the refresh/reload button on the browser in order to see the latest updates. The same applies regardless of which page (now/gauges/today etc) I am viewing. When I close the browser and return some time later the conditions displayed are those from the previous refresh.

I have tried ticking and unticking Active FTP mode, and the same with FTP rename. I have not tried ticking Delete before upload since this is not recommended in the Help.

I wondered if it was a browser issue, but I have tried two different browsers on two PCs, with the same result. Also, if I visit other peoples' Cumulus websites I always see current data without having to refresh the page.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards, Kieron

[Kieron]

Sorry, I should have provided a URL:

www.kieronheard.com/weather


Cheers, Kieron

[DaveNZ]

Sounds like you are using Opera as your browser!

It doesn't sound like there's anything wrong with your set-up to me. Some browsers "cache" websites - that is they keep their own copy of the site content. You can clear the cache, usually some option like Clear Recent History.

Opera in particular seems to remember the exact contents of the page you viewed before you last closed it, and when you reopen it, it displays that page despite being outdated.

I just viewed your site in Firefox, it is up to date (2 mins ago)

[Kieron]

Hi Dave, thanks for your answer. You are quite right, I do use Opera as my main browser. However, I have IE7 on this and another PC and I am getting the same problem when using those. If you can stand it would you mind revisiting my site to check if you get current data without having to refresh the page.

Many thanks, Kieron

[DaveNZ]

I viewed in IE once and it showed fresh data, viewed in IE a while later and it wouldn't update (until I cleared the cache)
Same with firefox actually, I checked your site again and the data showed an hour old! Cleared the cache and reloaded and new data appeared.

So nothing wrong with data upload. But for some reason the browsers can't cache your page fast enough (first visit)!! That's what I find strange

[Kieron]

OK Dave, thanks very much for your help with this. Hopefully someone else can offer a solution.

Regards, Kieron

[Super-T]

Firefox, Chrome and IE8 all load with the earlier data but a normal refresh brings up the latest....seems normal to me.

[Kieron]

Hi Terry,

Thanks for your contribution, but it doesn't seem right to me. When I visit other Cumulus websites I always see current data, without having to refresh the page.


Cheers, Kieron

[Super-T]

Kieron
What do you get when viewing my website as mine is pretty standard?

Just tested on my website and it does update to the latest when shutting down the browser and restarting 5 minutes later. There is something different for you.

[Kieron]

Terry,

The first time I visited your website local time displayed as 11.36. After closing and opening the browser and revisiting the site the time had updated to 11.41. If that had been my site I would have had to refresh the page on the second visit in order to display current time etc.

Cheers, Kieron

[serowe]

You could always try forcing an auto refresh on anyone using the page - for example, I have thius at the top of my page:

Code: Select all

<META http-equiv="refresh" content="90">

This forces the page to be refrshed every 90 seconds (I update the page on my server every 60 seconds) and the 90 sec refresh ensure they have virtually each update.

I would question why you generate the realtime file every 3 seconds - puts a lot of 'stress and load' on the update - especially if there is any delay in getting the data to the web site. A more realitic figure IMHO would not be under 15 or even 30 seconds especially as it doesn't appear you are using the 3 second data anwhere on the web.

[beteljuice]

Is it going through a proxy (cache) server ?

[Kieron]

Serowe, where code is concerned I am not competent and was hoping to get away with using the standard template - but thanks for the suggestion. As for the realtime update interval, I think 3 seconds is the default but I agree that it is probably overkill.

Beteljuice, I don't believe it is a proxy server.

Thanks for your contributions, folks.

Regards, Kieron

[serowe]

Kieron - the code is very easy to implement - it just needs to go in the template file (indexT.html) in the header section (believe there is already a META statement there - so just needs to go under or around it). Once done you can leave and forget and it should ensure everyone continues to see all updates.

The time, btw, is in seconds - so if you are generating and uploading every 5 minutes the refresh time owuld be 5 * 60 or 300.

[DaveNZ]

Automatically refreshing the page doesn't stop it from being cached...