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Do not clear browser cache
Any unsaved changes will be lost

TL;DR

If you have any unsync'd changes - do not clear your browser cache, it will

  • wipe out your unsaved changes without giving us any chance to save it for you
  • continue to consume your licenses because it doesn't tell us you stopped

Both of the above are 'on purpose' by the browser - so it can be used to block bad actors. But it hurts those of us that are honest, or it hurts our customers.

If you are going to clear your browser cache, log out first so licenses are released. Otherwise the browser will not tell us and the license will still be consumed.

If you think you should clear cache try restarting the browser first instead - it is more likely the browser has a memory leak than you need clear cache with MCe. Type chrome://restart (works on Chrome, Edge, Brave, Vivaldi and others) into your browser URL, or close every window for the browser to restart your browser. On Safari do a 3 finger swipe up on the app to close it, for Android apps - call up the list of running apps (clicking the ||| button) then swipe up to close it or restart your phone. This will free up memory the browser lost. This applies to ALL browsers, and while they are getting better year over year, it is unlikely they'll ever get rid of all the bugs because as they add new features, they'll add new memory leaks.

Details

If you decide to use the clear cache feature, see the instructions at the bottom of this document first.

Why does the 'clear cache' functionality exist?

The clear cache in the browser is really a "There are bad people out there, get rid of the bad people" feature.

The Clear cache feature is also used by "There are bugs, work around mistakes". While once in a very rare case, you will need to clear cache to get around a bug by a good programmer, if you find yourself being told to 'clear cache' by a computer company as a standard 1st step - it is a very clear sign that their code is written very poorly. As of writing this (2023.06) in our 20 year history, and 1000's of users, we have only used "clear cache" to solve user problems 5 times. And 3 of those where when we shipped test code to the user at their request, so it was known to be 'not ready for production.'

To be fair to the developers, some support departments will also use 'clear cache' as a "go away so I can mark the ticket as closed and keep my closed ticket percentages high" or a "go away so I can have some time to think of a better answer." In that case the problem is the support people or support people who don't receive proper training or don't have proper lines of communication with their development teams.

How do you tell the difference? If clearing the cache routinely temporarily solves problems, it's bad programming! If clearing the cache only rarely solves anything, then if you are being asked to do it often, it is bad support.

There are ways to clear the browser cache, but please do not do this globally or for our site. When you clear your cache you:

  • Delete all of your data without our code having any warning whatsoever; this is because of 'bad actors', evil people who would write code that would do bad things when you clear your cache to try to get rid of them. If you have an internet connection, this isn't too bad since we aggressively save your data every few seconds if there are changes pending.
  • In particular this means the browser will ○ Delete without any chance for us to save it, any information you have entered but has not been sync'd to your server. ○ Delete any information about licenses you are consuming, so your licenses are locked until they expire (concurrent) or until they have not been seen for a long enough time (named) ○ Delete all the files (including images) that the browser is caching. This isn't serious, it just means a time delay for you to get them again.

If you have no pending data to save, and you only use concurrent licenses, it may only mean that the licenses you had will be locked until they time out. But clearing the browser cache is like using a sledge hammer to kill a fly.

Valid common reasons for doing a browser clear cache include:

  • You have some viruses or similar by bad actors, in which case you should only clear the cache for those web sites.
  • You are using an app or application that has a bug where there is really truly no other way around it, in which case you should only clear the cache for those.
  • You have a bug/problem and you want to see if it persists even after all memory has been wiped.
  • You selling the device or otherwise disposing of it

But yes, once in a while, even with competent programmers, you will be asked to 'clear cache' to get around a problem or see if it gets around a problem. If it is from our team, you can be assured that either we have already released a patch or we will soon release a patch to avoid you having to do it again, at least for that reason!

IF YOU ARE GOING TO CLEAR YOUR BROWSER CACHE - BEFORE YOU DO, DO THE FOLLOWING:

If you decide you are going to clear the cache, even just some web sites, to be safe please do the following first:

  • Make sure all the changes you care about are saved; your last change should be at least 1 minute ago and the sync icon should be blue and have a check mark inset icon on it. If there is only one user and one database, this is usually very easy and not a problem. ○ Warning If you have more than one database - make sure that you have saved your changes in all of them. ○ Warning If you have more than one user on the device - make sure they have saved their changes.
  • Make sure you have logged out, and you have given it time connected to release your licenses; when offline it can't tell the server it was released, and there will be a message on the login screen saying it is trying to release your licenses if it is having problems releasing them

Then you can clear the browser cache without damaging yourself, other than it will take longer to get started next time you log in, because everything - code and data - has to be reloaded to your device.

NO OFFENCE INTENDED FOR DEVELOPERS USING CLEAR CACHE DURING DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING

Note: For those reading that are developers, yes, during development there are reasonable uses of 'clear cache'. The comments are not intended to suggest that developers during development and testing who use clear cache are incompetent. The comments above are for users of production, deployed applications, and for those, we make no apologies saying that the regular use of 'clear cache' is a clear sign of incompetent developers or support departments. But no offence is intended, and the comments don't apply, for developers using it DURING development and testing.

SAFARI Clear Cache doesn't work. Circa 2023.06

Note: As of 2023.06, the Safari browser clear cache is 'well known' since v5 to not properly clear cache. In particular, the 'IndexedDB databases' are not cleared. We suspect at some point in the future Safari will be more spec compliant.