A week ago I installed a WordPress plug-in to cache the site’s content. This was because the large number of unwanted bots that regularly crawl the site were causing problems by generating excessive demands on server resources.
Since then, there have been two, differing, reports of the site not displaying correctly. If you have, or have had, a similar experience please let me know by adding a comment below (or by email – admin{at}fifteensquared{dot}net). I would appreciate a brief description of the problem, details of the browser being used at the time and whether it was on a normal pc or a mobile device.
Hopefully this will help me to track down the cause of the problem and then to sort out the necessary remedial action, so my thanks in advance for any feedback.
Update: Thanks to feedback from sidey and flashling I think I have found the cause of and solution to the problem (see comment #3). However, if you see the mobile display format on a normal pc after this update was added (~3pm 15 May) please let me know as I don’t have a suitable mobile device in order to experiment and confirm my suspicion.
Comment on other thread.
Using IE10 on Windows 8 I got to see the Guardian blog only (others unaffected) in the mobile phone style about 9:30 last Wednesday. No issues since.
Thanks sidey & flashling
I suspect that the problem has been caused by visiting a post which was last cached when accessed by someone using a mobile device thus the mobile display was presented.
I have altered a setting in the cache plug-in so that mobile users are detected and a separate cached page then is stored under a different name.
I’m using Firefox and have no problems at all – all content is there and pageload is quick.
Using Firefox 20.1 on Windows 8 I have recently quite often got what I presume is the mobile phone style display as mentioned by Flashling. I haven’t noticed this display on either Vista or XP.
Thanks for the feedback, Anax & jmac. As indicated in my update and comment #3, I hope I have found the cause/solution but only time will tell.
Ah, good, we can scapegoat the ip-Hone users 😉
I now can’t get any misbehaviour. Thank you.
Hi sidey
“Ah, good, we can scapegoat the ip-Hone users ;)”
No, the fault is entirely mine for not setting up the cache plug-in correctly in the first place (assuming that the problem has now been resolved).
In my defence I would say that the plug-in, and its instructions, were written by someone whose first language is not English and so there was some ambiguity in the instructions.
My apologies to all those who have been inconvenienced by my error.
It was really just another way of looking at things – I could easily have got used to it. no inconvenience at all.
I thought it must be a new template that some of the bloggers were using.
I get what may be a mobile device-style display (twistie to open up the comments section, then no numbers on the comments, wide display) on both Firefox (20.0.1) and Chrome (26.0.1410.64 m) on a normal pc.
Hi BB
Thanks for the feedback. Hopefully the problem has now been resolved. Please see my update and comment #3. If you continue to experience the wrong display please let me know.
Hi Gaufrid,
Seems fine now, thanks, although I was still getting the ‘mobile’ display when I posted.
Using Chrome Version 25.0.1364.160 Guardian 25,949 shows mobile page rather than full browser version.
Just now 15:54 : Guardian 25,950 Arachne page shown as mobile version rather than full PC version. Using Chrome Version 26.0.1410.64
Charles & beermagnet
Thanks for the feedback. I will investigate further. With the settings as they are now, I can only surmise that the cache plug-in thinks that your requests for a post came from a mobile device.
Arachne OK for me now.
Rufus 25952 being displayed as mobile version. IE 9 on Windows Vista laptop.
Cheers.
Very weird – Rufus 25952 now OK! I tried it 3 or 4 times and it displayed as mobile then as soon as sending #17 I tried it again and it was normal. Either you “fixed” it amazingly quickly or there was some sort of transient problem. 😉
Hi EB
Thanks for the feedback. It seems that, despite having adjusted the settings, very occasionally a standard pc is being misidentified as a mobile device by one of the plug-ins. At the moment I cannot see why because there is nothing in the user agent that could be misinterpreted.
I was looking at the raw access log when your second comment was posted and had found that your initial access to Rufus had been incorrectly handled, hence the mobile display. Subsequent accesses appeared fine so the plug-in must have supplied you with the page out of its cache. The cache is cleared every hour which may account for the change back to the correct view when you went back to the post.