I think Lynx broke my Mac's Internets
December 8, 2010 8:03 PM   Subscribe

I decided to test my website in Lynx for OS X, but for some reason it loaded a version from May. Now, whenever I load the front page from any other browser on my computer, it displays that old version. This doesn't happen when I view it from my phone or any other computer, so it's definitely my computer, not my site. But I can't imagine what it could be. Anyone know what I might have done?

Yes, I have:

- Tried clearing my browsers' caches.
- Tried rebooting.
- Tried from a different Wifi connection.

Nothing worked.
posted by XerxesQados to Computers & Internet (8 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Is is possible that at some point you turned on web sharing on your Mac in order to test a local copy of your website before uploading it to your web host? if you've also configured your local DNS resolver to return your your local host as the address for your website this would explain why you see a different website from just that Mac.
posted by RichardP at 8:20 PM on December 8, 2010


Maybe there's a transparent caching proxy between you and the website, either as part of your corporate network (if you're at work) or at your ISP? That's pretty obnoxious, if so, though.
posted by andrewpendleton at 8:43 PM on December 8, 2010


If you telnet to the web server on port 80 and simulate a http session "GET /path/index.html HTTP/1.0 from that computer do you get the old version (in plain text)? Example: 
HTTP/1.0 302 Found
Location: http://www.google.com/
Cache-Control: private
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2010 05:25:07 GMT
Server: sffe
Content-Length: 219
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block

<HTML><HEAD><meta...
etc.

Notice the Date: line. Is it the current date and time?
posted by ctmf at 9:31 PM on December 8, 2010


do you get the right ip when you ping the website address?
posted by empath at 9:36 PM on December 8, 2010


Response by poster: ctmf: Yes, I still get the May 2010 version when telnetting. The Date: line is today, though.

empath: Yes, the IP address is correct.

I just want to reiterate that this only happens with the front page. If I go to /anything (/about, /blog, etc.) or click on a link, everything displays correctly. Something has tricked my entire system into not loading the current version of ONLY the index page.
posted by XerxesQados at 11:11 PM on December 8, 2010


Best answer: Is this the website linked from your profile? Because when I just visited that, the top blog post was dated May 14, 2010.

Those other computers you tested with - the ones that show you up-to-date content: have you cleared their caches?
posted by flabdablet at 11:18 PM on December 8, 2010


Is it Wordpress? I've had this problem with Wordpress. It was a while ago, all I recall was that it did have something to do with a caching plugin. If it's not wordpress then perhaps a similar problem has cropped up.
posted by ZeroDivides at 11:24 PM on December 8, 2010


Response by poster: flabdablet: I actually just figured that out right before reading your answer.

Apparently WP Super Cache had hit a snag, but it was only inconsistently manifesting itself. I went into my FTP and manually purged the entire cache.

This problem started happening right after I tested my site in Lynx, so I could've sworn that it was only affecting me. Wow. I feel stupid.

Thanks, everyone.
posted by XerxesQados at 11:31 PM on December 8, 2010


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