After upgrading ArcGIS Enterprise it is necessary for all users of our web apps (including anonymous users) to clear their cache/cookies or else the apps will not load. This behaviour is not new: After Portal update from 10.3.1 to 10.4.1 some use... - Esri Community. I posted a question about this recently here: Must clear cookies after ArcGIS Enterprise Upgrade - Esri Community. As noted by several responders, clearing the entire cache and all cookies is not hard to do. However, there are two problems with this approach:
- This assumes that all users will actually clear their cache/cookies when we ask them too. We have hundreds of potential users who work on 2 week rotations so our notifications often get buried before they even see them. We inevitably end up having to help many people weeks (sometimes more than a month) after an upgrade.
- It is easy to clear all cookies. However, if our users do not want to lose cookies for other sites, they have to delete the cookies for our Enterprise site specifically. This is much trickier, especially for users who are not very tech savvy.
As far as I know, this is a problem that is unique to Enterprise. I have never had to clear my cache or cookies to use sites like YouTube, Facebook, Google Maps, etc. These sites certainly go through upgrades, yet they have found a way to keep things running without users having to clear their cache or cookies.
I believe ESRI should implement a solution to bring them up to the same level as other browser based software providers. Two options that come to mind are:
- Version stamp all Enterprise cookies so that they are immediately invalidated and recreated after an Enterprise upgrade.
- Significantly reduce the time until Enterprise cookies expire. As noted above, I have had to help users more than a month after an upgrade. This seems quite extreme given that it effectively renders any app completely unusable until the cookies are cleared. If the site admin could control the maximum lifespan of the cookies, then that would be great as I imagine there may be some reason for the cookies to persist for this long in other workplaces.
If anyone has existing solutions to this problem or is aware of a setting that I have overlooked, please let me know.
