Clearing your cache and cookies

Clear the cache when you are being shown something that is no longer true. Clear cookies only if that fails, because cookies are what keep you signed in.

Clear the cache when you are being shown something that is no longer true. Clear cookies only if that fails, because cookies are what keep you signed in.

First find out whether it is your browser at all

Open the same page in a private window, or in a different browser. This takes ten seconds and it splits the problem in two.

• It works there. The fault is on your side: a cached file, an extension, or a stale session. Carry on below.
• It fails there too. Clearing anything is wasted effort. Ask a colleague to try, and if it fails for them as well, it is the service rather than your machine.

Clear the cache first, cookies only if you must

The two are not the same thing and the cost of clearing them is not the same either.

• The cache holds copies of files so pages load faster. Clearing it costs you a slightly slower first visit and nothing else.
• Cookies hold your sessions and your preferences. Clearing them signs you out of every site in that browser, so do it only when clearing the cache did not help.

Every browser hides this in its own settings, under a name like Clear browsing data, and those menus move with every release. Use your browser's own help page for the current route rather than a screenshot that was right last year.

For a single stubborn page, a hard reload is usually enough: hold Shift and click reload. That fetches the page again without touching anything else, and you stay signed in everywhere.

Why old files cause this

A cached file is kept because it is expected to stay the same. When we update something, your browser can keep serving yesterday's copy for a while, and what you see is a mix of old and new that never existed as a working whole. That is why the symptom is so often something that looks broken rather than something that looks out of date.

When it is not the cache

Clearing is a quick test, not a repair. If the same thing comes back within the hour, or colleagues see it too, stop clearing and tell us. Check status.pluscloud.nl first, then let us know what you see and roughly when it started.