[sp3] forums icons not updated
 

I don't know if this is a SP3 issue or if it's me: I have a number of workspaces where one of them contains a number of forums that I visit. Previous versions have always updated to the current forum status when I've done a "Restore Snapshot" but with SP3 this doesn't always seem to happen.

Sometimes I can do a reload and get a updated listing (I have to admit that I'm not sure if it's just the "unread icon" that get displayed or if it's the whole page ... will check this the next time I see this happen). Is this a known issue?

I checked another workspace and it looks like the whole page needs updating, is this the expected behavior?

I think this is related to the tabs being restored from cache rather than using a current fetch. I think sp3 is an improvement over sp1 in that the tabs displayed from the snapshot are actually what was at that page when it was most recently fetched. sp1 displayed some page from the history but not necessarily most recently fetched one.

So, no, I don't think the icons are being updated to their current state. They should be. But there should be some sort of setting to indicate how frequently they need to be updated or whether it's okay to restore them from the cache.

I think there was something in the release notes saying that on restoring a workspace, the current page is fetched live. But I don't think that when I switch to a tab that the page is refetched.

It's still not right.

[Beth posted while I was composing my thoughts. So my post re-plows some of the same ground.]

OmniWeb 5.1.3 restored a workspace by reloading the content from the Web server; 5.5 restores from its own cache (essentially a snapshot of the last displayed content).

I have voiced my concern about this new behavior:

[url]http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=118&postcount=6[/url]

This is especially a problem for volatile sites (e.g., news, forums) where the restored workspace is nearly always obsolete.

-- Ward

Workspaces are supposed to be validating all their pages when they load (unless you set the new "WorkspacesLoadFromCache" preference), and it works in the test pages that I've tried.

That said, I can certainly believe that they might not always be doing this (especially since I run with WorkspacesLoadFromCache set to true except when testing this bug), I just need some specific URLs to use as test cases so we can track this down and fix it.

So the next time you see a page load without validating, please report its URL using Send Feedback. Thanks!

Ken, I'm having trouble finding where that preference is set. I'll keep looking. I didn't change anything. I know for a fact that I have two tabs that do not do a fresh fetch on workspace load because I just refreshed them manually.

The Astronomy Picture of the Day ([url]http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html[/url]) and Earth Sciences Picture of the Day ([url]http://epod.usra.edu/[/url]) do not fetch new versions when the workspace loads. But those update again only once a day.

I think this page is also not updating and the plots are refreshed every few minutes, so you can see the change if you note the time: [url]http://www.spacew.com/index.php[/url]

(Also sent via feedback)

That preference can't be set inside OmniWeb itself, it's a hidden preference that you can only set by directly modifying OmniWeb's preferences. (I usually do this using "defaults write" in a Terminal window.) If you haven't set the preference, then it defaults to No.

Thanks for the test cases: I think I may have found the problem, and these will help me verify the fix.

I used Terminal and 'defaults read com.omnigroup.OmniWeb5' to see that I didn't have that set. I don't. I did run across defaults for a couple of older OmniWeb versions when I was double-checking.

Still puzzled
 

[QUOTE=Ken Case]That preference can't be set inside OmniWeb itself, it's a hidden preference that you can only set by directly modifying OmniWeb's preferences. (I usually do this using "defaults write" in a Terminal window.) If you haven't set the preference, then it defaults to No.[/QUOTE]
When I read Ken's first posting about the "WorkspacesLoadFromCache" preference, I went looking in the public preferences. In the History panel, I found "Validate cached content" set to "Automatically." I gather from the Help that this means OmniWeb should be honoring a <meta name="Pragma" content="no-cache"> tag. (That doesn't seem to be the case.)

When I didn't find "WorkspacesLoadFromCache" in Preferences, I assumed I needed to use a Terminal command. I figured out the command syntax by searching my OmniWeb Beta email archive for a message from Scott about another hidden preference:[INDENT]defaults write com.omnigroup.OmniWeb5 WorkspacesLoadFromCache -bool FALSE[/INDENT]
Before doing the "defaults write," I did a "defaults read" to see the current setting of this preference:[INDENT]The domain/default pair of (com.omnigroup.OmniWeb5, WorkspacesLoadFromCache) does not exist[/INDENT]
I went ahead and did the "defaults write" just for good measure.

I'm still seeing stale content when I open/reopen a workspace. For example, my Omni Forums workspace has a single window with several tabs, each with the directory of a forum. These tabs always show the previous content when I reopen the workspace. I have to do a Refresh to see the current directory.

At this point, I'm puzzled about when OmniWeb is supposed to be using its cache and when it's refetching content from the Web server. For example, what's the interaction between the public history cache preference and hidden workspace cache preference?

-- Ward