Have you noticed that your WordPress updates aren’t showing up on your site? This is a common problem among WordPress users. Caching issues, whether in your own web browser, your WordPress site’s cache, or your content delivery network’s cache, are virtually always to blame (CDN).
We’ll look at those causes in this guide, as well as why caching might create issues with WordPress changes not showing up. Then we’ll walk you through a few troubleshooting steps to figure out what’s wrong and fix it so you and your site’s visitors can see the changes.
Solutions
1. Force refresh your site or clear your browser’s cache
Your web browser will cache a website’s content if you visit it more than once, making it load faster. The browser cache keeps static files on the local computer’s memory to decrease the number of queries sent.
However, your browser may refuse to download website files from the server of a WordPress site, stopping you from viewing updates.
Force a browser refresh to download the most recent version of all files from your website’s server to resolve this issue. Depending on your operating system and browser, you can do it in various ways on your WordPress site.
Frequently, a hard refresh is all that is required to acquire a new version of your site. This, however, only works to reload a single URL. If the problem persists, another option is to wipe your browser’s full cache.
Here is a guide on clearing the cache on your used browser.
The recommendation would be to choose the option ‘Cached images and files. It would remove the cached version files from previously visited sites, which means the loading time might be longer on the next visit. This solution, however, displays webpage updates in your browser. Apply the cache-busting tactic – always use distinct names when publishing or updating content – to show WordPress updates on your visitors’ browsers.
For example, instead of uploading a second image.jpeg to replace the first, rename it image_1.jpeg. If your CSS modifications aren’t showing up on your WordPress site, you may use this way to fix them.
Instead of downloading the cached files, the browser will request a new file from the origin server. Visitors will then obtain the most recent version of the site without reloading their browser.
This strategy may also be used in scripts, such as CSS stylesheets. So, if your CSS changes aren’t showing up in WordPress, this is one approach that might help.
In addition to modifying the filename, other cache-busting techniques include changing the file path or inserting query strings. Here are several examples:
File path – yoursite.com/v2/style.css
Filename – yoursite.com/stylev2.css
Original: yoursite.com/style.css
Query strings – yoursite.com/style.css?ver=2
2. Clear your site cache with WordPress cache plugin
If the updates still don’t appear after clearing the browser cache, the problem might be caused by a WordPress caching plugin. So review your site plugins to see if you have one installed to help your site load quicker and provide a better website visitor experience.
Alomost all caching plugins include options to clear your website’s entire cache or just the cache for individual pages of your WordPress website. So the cache plugin may have setup issues that prevent updates from being seen. Each plugin has its instruction on how to clear the cache, so check the documentation for your plugin to see how to do that exactly. Most caching plugins offer a built-in cache capability, such as WP Rocket, WP Super Cache, or WP Fastest Cache.
After clearing the cache, visit your site in a private browser tab or log out of your account to view the changes.
3. Clear your Cloudflare cache
If you’re using a Cloudflare to speed up your site, and website changes are not shown, try to clear its cache.
There is one primary way how to do clear the cache with Cloudflare.
1. Firstly, log in to your Cloudflare account and head to Caching –> Configuration.
2. There, you will see two options:
⦁ to clear all the cache in your website – Purge Everything;
⦁ to remove the specific web page cache – Custom Purge.
3. If you have chosen the second option, you will need to insert the URL of your website page where you want to purge the cache.
4. Then click on Purge.
5. If you want to purge all the cache in your site, click on Purge Everything and then confirm that by clicking again on Purge Everything.
Other reasons why updates might not be shown on your WordPress site
When you publish changes to your WordPress website, the changes should appear immediately in both your and your visitors’ browsers. Start looking for the source of the problem if it takes more than five-ten minutes for the change to appear.
Caching is the most likely main reason for this issue. However, there might be other reasons why WordPress updates do not appear straight away.
Here are some other reasons why WordPress website changes are not showing too.
The file name is incorrect.
If you’re upgrading a file on your WordPress website, double-check that it is the correct one. When two or more documents have similar file names, it is simple to pick the wrong one.
It’s easy to overlook the fact that logo.png and logol.png are two separate files. Check the names of your media and other files to ensure they’re all proper.
To avoid this problem, give new files distinct names when adding them, especially if you are replacing an old file with new information.
Permission setup
The caching issue might arise most frequently when you have numerous sorts of users with access to your content. Check each email address to ensure that each user has access to the relevant posts and pages. Use the User Switching plugin to examine the various permissions of various roles.
Privacy Setup
The user management settings in WordPress grant varied access capabilities to people who visit the site. An Administrator on WordPress might have access to different stuff than a Subscriber. As a result, the permissions set may block a specific user from viewing changes.
Look at the Post Visibility on the page or post to see whether this is the root of the WordPress not showing changes issue. One of the options may be seen there: public, private, or password protected.
Changes that have not been saved
Another cause of this WordPress issue is failing to save changes before logging out from the WordPress admin dashboard or simply checking updates via another taskbar. The WordPress site, for example, may not be updated since you have not pressed the publish button. Return to your editor to see whether your changes are still there to see if this is the problem.
This is true not only for pages and posts but also for other types of content. If you do not click the Save button after making changes to WordPress plugins and widgets, the changes will not show up. Even though storing your content changes appears to be a straightforward operation, some people still overlook this step.
The theme is incorrect.
Some themes are only compatible with specific WordPress versions. If you are experiencing trouble viewing changes after switching templates, it is possible that the template is not compatible with your WordPress version.
So check to see if the theme you are using is compatible with your WordPress installation to determine if this is the issue. If you need to add a new theme, you can use this guide.
DNS records are not propagated.
Even WordPress updates should be visible right away, changes to your DNS records may take up to 24-48 hours to propagate. So, if you do not observe any DNS-related changes straight immediately, it is possible that DNS has not been fully propagated yet.
Also, you can try to flush DNS cache if they do not propagate within 24-48 hours.
The URL is incorrect.
When browsing for the latest version of your site, you may accidentally open the incorrect URL. This problem frequently occurs when you replicate a page and then open the previous version. So double-check your URL to be sure you are on the latest version.