This is at best a step removed from genealogy, but is a very useful trick if you are a Google Chrome user. Have you ever visited a web page and had the same page load over and over even if you know it changed?
I recently was updating a site I maintain and had this happen when I was testing how my changes looked. After making my changes, I clicked Google Chrome’s Refresh button and… still got the same page with old info.
So, I then held down the Shift key while clicking refresh, which is supposed to clear any cached files for that page then load the page from scratch. And… *sad trombone*… same page, old info. That is not supposed to happen, Mr. Chrome.
The caching problem can happen for various reasons, either due to poor web design or a recalcitrant web browser. You could go into the browser’s Tools –> Options and clear ALL of the cache. But, that’s annoying – like emptying out your entire refrigerator because some cheese went bad. (Or another, more valid, metaphor.)
But, whatever the reason, I am now reaching deeper into my bag of magic tricks and sharing a nice easy but likely lesser known fix in The Google’s Chrome browser:
When you really want to start a page from scratch in Chrome, use the following keystroke to open a Developer Tools panel on the right side of the page:
<CTRL><SHIFT><I>
or
<⌘><⌥><I>
for the Apple folks among you.
I won’t go into any detail here, but you’ll notice there are a lot of things to play with in this panel – including a way to see what cookies are related to the page.
Once the developer tools panel is open, go over to the usual Refresh button at the top of the page and RIGHT-click on it. You’ll see a drop down menu that doesn’t normally appear there!
Simply Left-click “Empty Cache and Hard Reload” and you will get the latest page loaded and ready to go.
Enjoy!