Clearing cached content from browsers

Owned by Ray Lee (Unlicensed)
Mar 28, 2014
4 min read

In order to improve performance, CollectionSpace directs users' web browsers to cache content, including HTML pages, stylesheets, images, and scripts. Once this content has been cached, it is not retrieved again from the server until a certain amount of time has passed. This expiration time is configurable by CollectionSpace administrators, and may vary from installation to installation. By default, content is cached in browsers for one month from the time it is downloaded.

When CollectionSpace is upgraded to a new version, the updated content will not be available to users until their cached content has expired. Since caches can expire for different users at different times, this can result in various users having differing experiences when they access CollectionSpace after an upgrade. In addition, each kind of content (such as HTML pages, stylesheets, images, and scripts) is designed to work in concert with the others. If one kind of content expires from a user's cache before another, that user may end up with some content from the current version of CollectionSpace mixed with other content from the previous version. This may lead to errors or unexpected behavior in the application.

To mitigate this problem, the cache expiration times may be set to smaller values, at the expense of performance. Users may also need to clear their browser caches after CollectionSpace version upgrades, so that new content will be downloaded immediately.

Clearing the file cache

CollectionSpace directs browsers to store some content in the browser's file cache. These instructions describe how to clear the file cache in the Tier 1 supported browsers.

Chrome

  1. Click the Chrome menu on the browser toolbar. This will be on the top right of the Chrome window, underneath the tabs.
  2. Select Tools.
  3. Select Clear Browsing Data.
  4. In the dialog that appears, select the checkbox for Cached images and files.
  5. In the dropdown menu at the top, select the beginning of time. It may be possible to select a smaller amount of time, depending on the CollectionSpace configuration.
  6. Click Clear browsing data.

Firefox

  1. On Mac OS, select History from the menu bar. On Windows, select History from the Firefox menu.
  2. Select Clear Recent History.
  3. In the dialog that appears, select the checkbox for Cache.
  4. In the dropdown menu at the top, select Everything. It may be possible to select a smaller amount of time, depending on the CollectionSpace configuration.
  5. Click Clear Now.

Clearing the offline application cache

CollectionSpace also directs browsers to store some content in the browser's offline application cache (also known as the appcache), which is separate from the file cache. In some cases, the offline application cache will need to be cleared as well. These instructions describe how to clear the offline application cache in the Tier 1 supported browsers.

Chrome

  1. In the address bar, enter chrome://appcache-internals.
  2. Find the "Manifest:" line that contains the address of the CollectionSpace server that you wish to access.
  3. Click on the Remove link below the desired server.

Firefox

  1. On Mac OS, select Firefox from the menu bar, then select Preferences. On Windows, select Options from the Firefox menu, then select Options from the submenu.
  2. In the dialog that appears, select the Advanced panel.
  3. Click on the Network tab.
  4. In the Offline Web Content and User Data section, click on the address of the CollectionSpace server that you wish to access, in the list of websites that are allowed to store data for offline use.
  5. Click Remove.
  6. In the dialog that appears, click Remove offline data.

See also

If you're administering a CollectionSpace system and want to configure how caching is done - what gets cached and for how long - or if you're using a CollectionSpace system and want to learn more (in technical language) about how it caches various items to improve performance, see: