topic Re: browser cache in ArcGIS Viewer for Flex Questions

browser cache

EricGardecki — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:38:26 GMT

It seems like I often have to clear my browser's cache after updating some things with my web app or else the changes do not show. Clearing the REST cache doesn't take care of everything. I think the average user would not think to clear their cache let alone even know how and they would not see changes/fixes. Is there a way to force it on load somehow? If not, Any ideas on how to get people to understand that it may be necessary? I doubt that a snippet in a help page would be enough....plus when would they even know that a change has been made and they need to clear it?

thanks!

Re: browser cache

philippschnetzer — Tue, 08 May 2012 15:05:27 GMT

One thing that helps is using a browser that doesn't store a cache: Google Chrome Incognito, Firefox Private browsing, etc...

Maybe just let the users know to use such a browser in a splash page or something....

Other than that I do not know how to enforce an automatic browser cache cleansing upon load....

Re: browser cache

MattiasEkström — Wed, 09 May 2012 07:24:11 GMT

You can modify the configmanager.as and add timestamps to the URLs when swf-files and xml-files are loaded, which will prevent the browser from getting it from the cache memory.
Take a look at this thread: http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/16664-Preventing-client-side-caching-of-the-Flex-Viewer

Re: browser cache

jessebelcher — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:24:37 GMT

mattias_j,

I have look through the other thread.. I have downloaded the file.. i am not sure where or what i need to change. I cant find the ConfigManager.as.. i am fairly new to this.

Any ideas?

Jesse B.

Re: browser cache

EricGardecki — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:35:50 GMT

I'm with you on that one. Turns out that that file is in the source for the viewer. So I downloaded that, opened in flash builder (first time using it), fumbled my way around in there all morning, and once I got the build exported it didn't work anyway (viewer doesn't load at all). I have no idea if I did something wrong in FB or if I missed some of the edited lines in Robert's attachment. I opened his file, found the lines with the timestamp, and edited those lines in the 2.5 version.

I spent a long time and have no idea what i'm doing in the source, or in FB itself. Unless someone can point me to what I may have done wrong I think i'm screwed.

I spent so much time setting up the flex viewer and now something like this is making me regret using it. How can something like this get overlooked? Silly me, if I update my viewer or data I want the end users to see the changes...

Re: browser cache

MattiasEkström — Fri, 11 May 2012 08:08:33 GMT

Sorry I forgot to mention that the solution in that thread is for those who is working with the source code i FlashBuilder. And that the ConfigManager.as file was for version 2.3.1.
Well I started a new project with the source code for 2.5 and made the changes to the ConfigManager.as, and it works for me at least.
Eric, did you first try to running the application without any changes at all? if that works you could try the new ConfigManager.as attached to this post. If not you should read this carefully and start over.
Or you could try to use the compiled version and change the index.swf to the one I included in ConfigManager_v2.5.zip, that's my compiled file after making the changes to the ConfigManager. I can't guarantee that it'll work, but it may be worth a try.
Jesse and other who use the compiled version could try this as well. But I'm not sure if there might be some of my FB-settings or something else that will make any other changes to my compiled index.swf compared to the one you get when dowloading the compiled version.

Re: browser cache

jessebelcher — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:03:44 GMT

mattias_j,

Thanks for the reply.. i am trying to get the basics down before i jump into the non compiled Api version..

I have replaced my index.swf with the one from your post.. i am testing it now. Good news is everything still works as it did before. Not sure about the cache as of yet but i will let you know.

Thank you for you help on this.

Re: browser cache

EricGardecki — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:03:31 GMT

Mattias, thanks for the response.

I tried your index.swf and get the same result as the one I compiled. The url to the viewer appears to find something, as in no browser errors, but I get a blank white screen. Flash loads but no viewer. I get no errors anywhere. This same testing application works just fine with the esri compiled version of the file.

I then again loaded the source in FB and simply tried to run it before doing anything (as in your link) and I get an error saying it can't find index.html. All I did was import the project and add the sdk as is and there are files missing??

I'm thoroughly frustrated as to why either thing isn't working and don't know what else to do. Any ideas? Thanks

Re: browser cache

MattiasEkström — Tue, 15 May 2012 06:20:45 GMT

Eric, the problem with a blank white screen and no errors I've had before. I could solve that by installing a new version of flash player. I don't know what was wrong, the version I had was supposed to be working. Try updating your flash player and see that changes anything.
The index.html is supposed to be created when building the project, it's based on the index.template.html in the html-template folder.

Re: browser cache

EricGardecki — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:40:53 GMT

My flash players are all up to date already so there was nothing to update. I tried it in multiple browsers and multiple computers as well.

As for the index.html. I was just trying to follow the developer help page you linked to. It suggested running the index.mxml within FB, prior to compiling, to be sure it's working. That's when I got that error.

That being said, I decided to try again and ignore that error. I replaced the ConfigManager.as in the project with yours that was posted above, compiled, and tested it out. It is loading just fine now. I then tried a couple quick changes to test out the cache thing. Changes to a widget happened without having to clear the browser cache, however, when I changed something in a popup config I could not see the change without clearing the browser cache. Apparently there are some limitations to what this fix applies to. Do you have a handle on what those limitations may be? So far it seems that it applies to widgets and changes to the config.xml....which is definitely great...but what does it not apply to and why? And can this be changed?

Thanks for your help. I'm glad to have this working.

Oh... the compile creates several *.swz files along with the index.swf that apparently match the version of FB. Must I use the versions I created or can i just take the index.swf alone out and add to my viewer?

Re: browser cache

MattiasEkström — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:32:49 GMT

Eric, I reacently noticed that this fix doesn't apply to the PopUpConfig-files too. It was a little bit more tricky to fix than I first thought, I will try to solve it and post back here when/if I'm able to solve it...
As it is now it applies to config-files, both main-configs and widget configs and all widget swf files. For the index.swf I think you have to add a timestamp to the index.html file if you haven't already done that.

Concerning the .swz-files I don't think there is any differens between them so you can just take the index.swf. But I'm not 100% sure...

Re: browser cache

EricGardecki — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 03:43:38 GMT

I haven't done anything to the index.html so I revisited that thread. So I should change this:

swfobject.embedSWF(
                "index.swf", "flashContent",
                "100%", "100%",
                swfVersionStr, xiSwfUrlStr,
                flashvars, params, attributes);

to this?

swfobject.embedSWF(
                "${swf}.swf?ts=" + new Date().getTime(),
                "100%", "100%",
                swfVersionStr, xiSwfUrlStr,
                flashvars, params, attributes);

as for the new .swz files, apparently they are required to go along with the new index.swf because it didn't work without them.

I did notice that this cache fix did not work on the "MySplash" widget, but maybe the change above will take care of that.

thanks

Re: browser cache

MattiasEkström — Mon, 21 May 2012 13:08:38 GMT

Eric, yes that change will make sure that the main application index.swf is not loaded from the browser cache.
Due to some datatype problems with the PopUpConfig URLs in ConfigManager it is easier to do that fix in the MapManager.mxml
Look for the line:

var popUpConfigURL:String = arrLayerPopUp.popUpConfig;

It should be around line nr 1017, and replace it with:

var popUpConfigURL:String = String(arrLayerPopUp.popUpConfig) + "?ts=" + new Date().getTime();

That should make sure that PopUpConfigs doesn't load from browser cache...

Re: browser cache

EricGardecki — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:35:57 GMT

ok I made that change in the MapManager.mxml and it seems to work perfectly. Thanks!

As for the index.html, when I make that change the application doesn't load. I get a message about it requiring flash 10.2. I am up-to-date. Are you sure my code above is exactly right?

Re: browser cache

MattiasEkström — Tue, 22 May 2012 05:16:39 GMT

sorry, your code above was a mix of what it should be in the index.template.html and the index.html.
In the index.html it should be:

swfobject.embedSWF(              "index.swf?ts=" + new Date().getTime(), "flashContent",                 "100%", "100%",                 swfVersionStr, xiSwfUrlStr,                 flashvars, params, attributes);

Re: browser cache

EricGardecki — Wed, 23 May 2012 17:09:14 GMT

that did it. thanks again.

Re: browser cache

DanielJohns — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 13:10:53 GMT

Hi, I'm using 2.5 and was trying to achieve the same thing (disable the swf caching). I've attempted the recommendations above, but it's still loading the old version from cache (using IE9).

I've tried the MapManager.mxml mod and also the Index-template mod (also verified the build) with no success.

I'm using the eSearch tool as well as a splash page (not sure if that would make a difference).

my Index-template.html has the following mod.

swfobject.embedSWF(
             "index.swf?ts=" + new Date().getTime(), "flashContent",
                "100%", "100%",
                swfVersionStr, xiSwfUrlStr,
                flashvars, params, attributes);

Flash also ignored the following (for those who may come across other post).

<meta http-equiv="Cache-control" content="no-cache" />
<meta http-equiv="Cache-control" content="no-store" />
<meta http-equiv="Cache-control" content="must-revalidate" />
<meta http-equiv="Cache-control" content="max-age=-1" />
<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache" />
<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-store" />
<meta http-equiv="Expires" content="-1" />

Thank you for any recommendations to resolve the issue 😉

Daniel

Re: browser cache

EricGardecki — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 13:24:06 GMT

Have you applied the time stamps to the multiple lines in the ConfigManager.as?

Re: browser cache

DanielJohns — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 13:29:18 GMT

I'm actually doing that right now. I found another forum post that mentions it.

http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/16664-Preventing-client-side-caching-of-the-Flex-Viewer?p=105311&viewfull=1#post105311

I have 2.5 (Robert provided the one for 2.3.1) so I have to search and replace, but it this works I will reply.

Thank you

Re: browser cache

DanielJohns — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 13:55:44 GMT

Okay, so I've modified just the ConfigManger.as. Completed the 'Export Build Release' and moved it to the production server.

I enter the url http://server/flex and nothing changes (still pulling from cache). Should I be expecting to see server/flex/index.swf?...

Update: Well, I think it's finally working.

I took the zip from http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/57121-browser-cache?p=197488&viewfull=1#post197488
and used the ConfigManager.as, the only difference from ours was the double ;; on a couple of lines (I used one).

I also added swfobject.embedSWF(
                "${swf}.swf?ts=" + new Date().getTime(), "flashContent",
                "${width}", "${height}",
                swfVersionStr, xiSwfUrlStr,
                flashvars, params, attributes);

back to the Index.html and it loaded a fresh page 😄

Now for more testing. Thank you!