secondary sidebar not updating

Hi Allison. Do you have a caching plugin active? If so, you should clear that, and the browser cache, then load the page and see if that helps.

Yes, I do. And I did both of those things. Still didn’t change.

Can you post a link to your site so we can take a look? Thanks.

Here you go: https://www.bostonagainstolympics.bid/

Ok. It’s worse than I thought. The front page doesn’t update at all. New posts don’t show up.

The changes I made to the sidebar appear on some pages, particularly new ones, when a new post is made. But not on others.

Help!

Doesn’t look like you’re using a CDN (?). Could there be any caching happening on your host? What happens if you clear your script/page caches and deactivate the related plugins?

what’s a CDN?

Ok, it must be something local to me. The front page will not update on my computer, no matter what browser I use or how much I clear caches.

I looked on a friend’s computer and the front page was updating.

Which plugins would I deactive?

CDN = Content Delivery Network. I would start by disabling the cache plugin. If that doesn’t fix it then I’d start disabling other plugins, maybe with the most recently installed first, and see if that changes anything. I don’t know that it’s a plugin that’s causing the problem but plugin conflicts can sometimes cause some strange issues.

In your first post above you said:
“I put some widgets in the secondary sidebar and that went perfectly fine.
Today, I added text to the text widget, but that change is not reflected when the page is loaded in a browser.”

Did any other changes or updates take place between the time of “that went perfectly fine” and when you “added text to the text widget”?

That’s a good question. I’m not sure if I can recall. I might have added an event manager plug in in that time frame. Will try turning that off to see what happens.

I did deactivate the W3 cache plugin. No change.

What I find odd is that the page is updating just fine on other computers.

For instance, if you load our front page, what is the first blog entry you see at the top of the right-hand column? (I just added that today and I can’t see it, but others can. My front page looks exactly the same for since the time I first posted this thread.)

The latest post I see is in category “Media” dated Dec. 3rd, titled “Can we talk about the 2014 Olympics?” It appears that the css/js files have been minimized but it doesn’t appear that the page itself has been cached.

hmmm. That’s not the latest post. So, now I’m more concerned again.

Am going to spend tomorrow figuring this out. Thank you for being here.

ok. So, just to recap so I understand where we are after making several adjustments:
1. The W3TC plugin is disabled.
2. You don’t have any other caching or minify plugins running.
3. You’ve cleared all the cache folders and files on your host.
4. You can’t see any updates on your local computer (are you using the “Visit Site” option on the Admin menu?)
5. Your friend’s computer shows the updates as you enter them.

1. Yes, W3TC is disabled.
2. Correct, no other caching or minify plugins
3. Not sure. Don’t see anywhere on my control panel to clear cache on the host. (UPDATE: found cache management tool and turned off caching, for now.)
4. Correct, not seeing updates. Yes, using the “Visit Site” option (though I’ve tried loading the pages manually and in a different browser. Same result.)
5. On Thursday, I saw my friend’s computer register updates. (But come to think of it, he was on a computer in his office that he doesn’t usually use, so it may have been the first time he loaded the page, at all. What you’re reporting, however is a couple of posts behind the latest, so I’m skeptical that the front page is updating anywhere.

Now, I’ve deactivated widget (Event Organiser and Enhanced Text) and the page still displays without updates. It still has the content from those deleted plugins.)

Just for the sake of having as many clues as possible here:
some pages ARE updating. I can see the sidebar updates and the correct latest post link on a single post page or an event page, for instance.

Hi Allison. #3 – that would be an option in W3TC. You might reactivate it, hover over Performance, then click Dashboard, then click Empty all caches, then deactivate W3TC again. Or, you could log on to your host account and manually clear the files out of the cache folder.

So it sounds like no new content is being added. When you add new content and log off, is the content there the next time you log on? What happens if you make a change to, say, the post I mentioned above? Is that change retained when you review the post in the back end the next time you log on? Wonder if I’d be able to see that change…?

I did clear the cache through W3TC before deactivating it. Plus, I did find the cache management tools on the host control panel. I cleared cache there and turned off caching, for now.

If I log into the admin, all the new content is there. Changes I made the sidebar are still there. It’s just not showing up in the published pages. I thought that it was only not showing up IF you had ever loaded that page before, until you told me that you weren’t see the latest posts on the front page, either.

I’m completely flummoxed and am thinking about reloading the WP software, just to see if that does anything.