Updates completed; needed updates still showing

Greetings – There is something a bit annoying that I have encountered many times, on many different sites, many different servers, and with many different plugins. I have researched this several times without being able to find a solution, and figured it is finally time to understand the WordPress update process.

For simplicity of this discussion, let’s say I have WordPress, WooCommerce, and Yoast installed. I log into my admin area and I see that there are 2 plugins with updates: WooCommerce installed version is 1.0.2 (fictional version number), and the latest version is 1.0.3. Yoast installed version is 2.3.0 (again, fictional), and the latest version is 2.4.0.

I go to Dashboard->Updates, tick both boxes and proceed with the updates. Both updates complete successfully, yet when the admin panel refreshes, I still see 2 or 1 next to the plugins. When I view the installed plugins I see a notification under WooCommerce that says something like: There is a new version of WooCommerce available. View version 1.0.3 details or update now. (Remember I just updated to version 1.0.3, which is showing as the currently installed version immediately above the mentioned notification).

Why is there still some mention of an update being available if the update has already been done?

Where is the information about currently installed versions and available versions pulled from?

Because I have experience with both Joomla and WordPress, Joomla uses an updater which shows when updates are available. The cache holding this information can be cleared (then 0 available updates are shown), and then an update check can be done again. Then the available updates information is populated again.

In the case of Joomla, very infrequently all available updates might not show when first logging in; however, clearing the cache and checking again always finds all available updates. Regardless of that, I have *never* successfully updated any extension and then seen any update available for the same extension to the same version.

As a reminder, this has occurred on *many* WordPress installs, *not* always the same plugins, and on many different servers, some LEMP and some LAMP, and this issue does *not* happen every time updates show.

I can clear this issue if I click the plugins or updates links from a few to several times. I assume this is because the information is either being cached somewhere, or there is some issue in otherwise comparing the installed vs. available plugins.

Thanks in advance for any help.