Site not updating changes to theme unless I switch themes

  • Hi there, I have a pretty customized theme, and since I upgraded to 2.8.6 (even though the thing to the right on this page says 2.8.5, when I chose 2.8.6 as my version), whenever I make changes to my theme and upload them, they aren’t reflected on the site, even after a shift+reload (to not load from the disk cache). However, if I switch themes from my theme to the default or classic theme, then switch back, my changes are there. It also happens if I try changing the default or classic theme files and upload them, they will not show the changes until switching themes.

    What’s even stranger is that when I go to edit the new files inside WP (I normally edit them locally and upload them), I see my changes, but they are still not picked up by the actual site until I switch themes.

    I have tried deactivating all my plugins with the same result. I also reinstalled (albeit automatically) 2.8.6 to see if it was just a hiccup in my installation.

    I’m using Yahoo! Small Business web hosting, if that makes a difference. As I said, I never noticed this problem until 2.8.6, but I did upgrade from 2.7 to 2.8.6. I apologize if this is something normal and/or easy to solve; I searched the documentation and support forums but could find nothing remotely near my issue.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

  • even after a shift+reload

    What browser are you using?

    Have you tried not switching themes and simply waiting 20-30 mins? I’m wondering if Yahoo have a web cache at their end that isn’t being refreshed very frequently. I’ve come across that issue before on a client’s site (although not one who uses WP).

    Obvious troubleshooting steps: Switch to the default theme, make a small change to one of the template files in that them and see if the change takes effect immediately.

    If this is a new issue since upgrade and you’ve ruled out plugin problems, the next probable culprit would be your theme.

    Thread Starter xtoq

    (@xtoq)

    As I stated, I did this with the default and classic themes too. Even waiting 2 hours didn’t make it update, default theme or not. The weird thing is that the small change I would make to either my theme or the default one (I added “Bippity Boppity Boo” right above the content tag in “default” theme) would not show up live, but when I would go to the theme editor within WP admin and select the theme file I changed (index.php), the text that I added was there, but would only on the live side after I switched themes. Its not a problem with my theme, since it happens with both the default and classic themes which, other than my small change to see if it was my theme, have been unaltered.

    I’m using Firefox. I haven’t tried it with IE as of yet, because of the strangeness of it obviously having the changes admin side just not live side.

    I never had this problem before with Yahoo! but the last time I did major changes to the theme files was almost 5 months ago, and they very well could have altered something since then. I opened a ticket on Yahoo! and am still waiting for a reply.

    EDIT: So I tried it in IE with the same results, not updating until a theme switch. If its a problem with Yahoo!’s cache, why does it update when I switch themes? I’m not saying its not a Yahoo! problem, just curious why its behaving this way.

    EDIT 2: So I tried this on a blog that I haven’t updated to 2.8.6 yet, and the changes that I make and upload via my FTP server appear immediately upon a reload of the page. This site is also hosted on Yahoo!, which rules out it being a bug on Yahoo!’s end. The stranger thing is that I upgraded (automatically) to WP 2.8.6 on the working blog, and made changes on my computer, uploaded them, and they show up immediately. So it must be something in the configuration on Yahoo!’s end, since I have deleted my problem blog and reinstalled with the exact same results and no custom theme. I’ll let you know what I find out from Yahoo! or my own investigations. If anyone has any insight why this might be happening on one and not the other (and to my knowledge they are both configured the same on the server) I would appreciate it.

    Thread Starter xtoq

    (@xtoq)

    Just posting a new message instead of editing the old one. The culprit was the plugin WP-Cache, I had to delete the whole thing before it would work correctly. Oddly enough, I have that same plugin on my 2 other sites, and I have no problems with either of them, and they have the same configuration. If you have this same problem and run WP-Cache, backup your database first, and the WP-Cache if you can, and go to the plugins options to delete the cache. Then deactivate it and DELETE it from your plugins folder. If you don’t do the last step, for some reason it doesn’t work. After I’ve made my updates, I’ll reinstall it and see what I can come up with, and check out the author’s page to see if this is an issue or just a problem between user and keyboard.

    I have no idea why disabling and clearing its storage didn’t work before, and only deleting the plugin that works fine on other setups was the solution.

    I was going to ask if you ran a caching plugin.

    Naturally if you cache wordpress theme data in will take time to see changes, and i’d expect that when caching.

    That’s a natural side effect of using caching, nothing out of the ordinary.

    If you need to update areas that get cached, well the answer is to not cache them whilst you work on them, be it by disabling the plugin or whatever is required to prevent caching of the files you’re working on.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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