secondary sidebar not updating

I don’t know this for sure, but I’m guessing it’s not WP. In your situation it seems there are only two places to get the site content; either directly from the database or from a cache. Since the updates are appearing normally in the back end that tells me that they are being saved correctly to the database. It’s when the page is rendered in the browser that it’s not getting the updates. So, it would seem that the request from the user’s computer is not getting the data directly from the database, but is being served an old page, and that could only come from a cache somewhere. Have you logged on to your host and verified that all the data has been deleted from the cache directory?

I hear you.

where would I look? (I went into file manager and searched for files that the word “cache” in the filename and it says there are none. is there something else I should look for?

UPDATE: I just found this directory: /2024/wp-content/cache/minify/000000 and it’s full of files that I don’t seem to be able to delete. I try and it returns “Internal Server Error” with no explanation.

Hi Allison. Take a look at this article. It gives a step-by-step for removing W3TC. Let me know if you have any questions.

thank you for the link. going to do that now. will report back.

Ok. I did all the steps in that article. No change. (I just want to cry.)

Also, those minify files are still there in the wp-content/cache/minify directory. Should they be there?

The wp-content/cache directory has the following sub-directories:

config: no files
db: not files
minify:

• has it’s own .htaccess file
• has subdirectory 000000 with 35 items

.

page_enhanced:

• has it’s own .htaccess file
• has subdirectory https://www.bostonagainstolympics.bid with 13 items

temp: no files

Don’t give up yet! There’s an answer out there somewhere; we just haven’t found it yet. Yes, I would delete all the files in the minify and page_enhanced directories and subdirectories. They aren’t native WP files.

I’m trying. I think I need to call into host support. The “delete” function fails on those files.

Deleted the directories. No change. Front page still shows old version.

Hmmmm…. I ran across a couple of other posts discussing removing W3TC. Comments:
– Delete plugin folder and all the other files.
– Delete WT3 additions in the wp-config.php
– Find every .htaccess file in your site (I found two), from the wp folder to the site root, and remove the WT3 additions.
– Remove the following files:
wp-content/advanced-cache.php
wp-content/db.php
wp-content/w3tc/
wp-content/w3-total-cache-config.php
wp-content/plugins/w3-total-cache/

You don’t perhaps have another copy of your site, in an add-on domain or subdomain, that you’re using for development or testing?
And have you tried disabling all your plugins to get back to a vanilla WP?
And have you tried activating another theme, like the default Twenty Fourteen?

Here’s an interesting thread. No solution but sounds exactly like what you’re experiencing.

And here’s another post that I found, not related to W3TC but having the same sort of issue. This person did find a solution.

Hi there. I walked away from this for a few days because it was so frustrating. I had spoken to tech support for my host, as well as, their specialists in WP and they hadn’t been able to solve the problem.

I tried again and someone figured out that something called “Site Lock” was turned on. They turned it off and it didn’t fix anything, at first. Then they realized they needed to “reset A” – I can’t recall exactly what that was. Once they did this, the problem was fixed.

Thank you for all your assistance with this. It was so frustrating, but very comforting to have someone helping me with it.

You’re most welcome. I’m glad to hear that it’s fixed and you’re back on track. I get engrossed in the nuances of WP and forget about all the other variables at play. Hope all goes smoothly from this point on!