Not auto refreshing + caching wp rocket exclusion?

Hi there,

Thanks for using podcast player on your website.

1. Podcast player caches podcast feed data for 12 hours to speed up webpage loading. Therefore, podcast should be auto updated after every 12 hours. However, you can easily change this duration from 12 hours to any preferred time by navigating to WordPress Dashboard > Podcast Player > Settings. Now modify “Podcast update interval” setting (The first setting).

2. Caching plugin usually creates static HTML copy of the actual WordPress page. This will reduce server load and page loading speed increases. However, this also means that the page’s content will NOT change dynamically (as it is just a static HTML copy).
For WP Rocket, I think you can create a cache lifespan, which means the page will automatically refresh after a certain interval. For more information, you may visit https://docs.wp-rocket.me/article/78-how-often-is-the-cache-updated

Inform me if more help is required on this.

Thanks,

• This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by Veda.

Thanks for getting back so quickly. Perhaps I was not clear enough.

The automatic updates of the feed do not work. I can manually fetch them and update it. But no matter if it is 12 hours or less, it does not do it automatically. I do need to hit the update button myself (and then also must purge the cache of that page).

Usually with caching plugins I can make exceptions for some CSS or JS. I thought I could apply the same for the Podcast Player plugin.

I can deal with caching later when I have enough input. But the feed not updating, is the initial issue here.

How could I troubleshoot that?
Do you have any idea what could prevent it (it’s actually not a too complicated website & setup).

Thanks again for your help … we like the plugin and widget, but would really need it to auto-update.

Hi there,

I suspect the issue is with the caching plugin. Podcast player should surely auto update after its mentioned interval for any new episodes.

Could you temporarily disable WP Rocket from your website and check if the page is updating automatically after mentioned time? I think it should. However, if not, than we will try to troubleshoot it further.

I will try my best to identify the root cause and resolve the issue.

Thanks,

Thanks a lot, I appreciate it…

I doubt it’s WP Rocket as it’s about frontend caching. Updating the feed has nothing to do with it I would say.

I tried to disable WP Rocket, load the page with ?nowprocket or load the page when I am logged in. But that is not the issue. The feed is just not updated, so I am pretty sure it’s not WP Rocket.

Sure, I could try to disable WP Rocket next week before the new episode gets uploaded to Spotify. I just don’t think that’s it.

Updating the feed itself works, because when I click the update button it refreshes the feed.

Thus, I thought if it can be related to the internal schedule. However, I just use standard wp-cron. Nothing changed there.

Perhaps you can let me know (if you know) if I can check a scheduled job with WP Crontrol.

I’ll try to figure out more myself, but testing is not so easy as there is only one new episode per week and it’s not me who is able to upload it (therefore no test uploads)

Hi there,

Podcast player is not using WP Cron (it puts unnecessary load on the server). Let me explain the whole update procedure. It is using the following method,
1. When podcast player is displayed for the first time, it will download the RSS file and fetch and store all the data from it.
2. Now, whenever someone subsequently load the page (where podcast player is displayed). The plugin will check if any cached data is available and also it is not older than specified time interval. If yes, then the cached data will be used to display podcast player.
3. If the cached data is not available OR it is older, podcast player will re fetch the feed file and check if there is any change made from the last cached data. If yes, than it will update the data.

This should be the most efficient method as it will minimize the use of your server resources.

Therefore, the feed will update automatically when someone try to load the page from frontend. I am not sure but WP Rocket might serve the cached results and therefore bypassing the whole dynamic update process.

However, We should test it further. Can you please provide your feed URL? I will create a test page and share link with you. This way, we both can check if podcast player on my test page is updating automatically or not.

Inform me for more help on this.

Thanks,

Your explanation makes sense…

I understand now. Thanks for laying out the details.
But that also means that the plugin will have general issues with any form of caching.

As it is not relying on the internal schedule, it relies solely on the actual page visit. If the visitor accesses a cached version of the page (for better performance obviously) then the check that should happen is never going to happen.

It makes completely sense now.

Workaround: disable the cache for the entire page.

I worked a lot with caching, but I am not sure at the moment what kind of bypassing must happen so that there is actual “contact” between the visitor and your plugin.

The link to Anchor FM is here
https://onetimesecret.com/secret/tt358qe126l217y9g3y2hfs2a4kqz7u

But I think I understood now, only, I do not have an actual solution for this yet.

I think you are correct. Also, this not an ideal situation with podcast player and caching plugin (I did not realize it earlier). I will be testing it further and look for possible solutions. I am keeping this ticket open and will update you in one or two days.

Thanks,

There is one more thought on the above. Even if podcast player updates the feed data by some backend cron or similar method, how will this be reflected on the front-end unless the cache is cleared? Is there any benefit of cron job in this case? Also, we are not yet sure that the problem is with WP Rocket (or any caching plugin). So, I will test and confirm.

I think what you reach with cron is, that the update process gets triggered reliably. That’s the first part of it, because then we know the feed itself is up to date. Also, I do not think that it is that performance-hungry in reality. It’s just a scheduler.

The second question is indeed about the caching itself. May it be WP Rocket or some other plugin.

However, caching does not mean that the cached version never gets updated. I am not aware about the details, but usually there are two approaches
1st – do not cache a specific part
2nd – do purge & preload the cache of a single page on some activity (e.g. update a page or custom post type)

When you think about it, it does work with other plugins and content as well, so I think it is possible. Caching does not mean it’s pure static HTML that never gets updated.

I disabled WP Rocket on the page with the podcast player, and will see next Friday if the latest episode is automatically updated.

Hi @markussss ,

Just to inform that I have added cron update feature in the podcast player in latest update.

Please test and inform me for any more help.

Thanks,

Hi @vedathemes

Thanks for moving on with this! I can tell you, that disabling cache of WP Rocket on that particular page worked. The page contains the podcast widget. When a new episode went live, it was shown automatically on the WordPress page (perhaps there was a small delay but it worked well).

I am not actively maintaining the site where it is used, so I asked the site owner if I can test it. Because for them, it works now as I disabled caching on this particular page.

Overall, it will take a few weeks as they do not publish new episodes that often.

Would this mean, the wp-cron job schedules the refreshing of the podcast stream? Or does it mean a server cron job must be added?

As I am snoozing that email already for a while, a quick update on my end.
I never could test it, as there was no new podcast episode in the last approx. 2 months.

It’s a volunteering project, so I can only wait and then check again if/how it works