Bring In The Cache Buster!

By now, we are all familiar with the issue.  Blogger's Blogroll gadget refuses to reliably pick up and publish the latest post.  I first encountered this issue back in May when I posted a short update at PWJ: Testing.  In May, this was an occasional issue with variable lags but not too long.  There were a few workarounds that seemed to lessen the burden and at least one of these techniques worked, most times, to force a repolling of Blogger's Blogroll gadget.

That situation has changed to a worse case as witnessed by blogs now seeing multi-day delays in the most recent post appearing in Blogroll.  Very frustrating.  None of the temporary "methods" I used in the past to jog the gadget into action seemed to work.  Blogger's Community has seen a growing number of complaints that I first referenced in response to a comment in PWJ: Fourteen Years of Marching Through History.  That reference pointed to New posts not showing on Reading List.  This issue holds for the Blogroll gadget as well.  One respondent laid blame on pasting formatted text into a blog post for this failure to update.  A more likely explanation is that the Reading List or Blogroll displays a cached or stale feed rather than the feed from the most recent post.  The latter explanation seems the most reasonable conclusion since current posts still appear in the daily Feedspot Today email and Feedly Reading List remains current.       

Responses in the community note, above, suggest clearing the cache.  Now, “Clearing the cache” can mean two different things, and it is important not to confuse them.  The response suggests clearing your browser cache.  Clearing the browser cache or viewing the blogsite in a private/incognito window is a good way to make sure you are seeing the current version of your own blog.  This is useful for validating whether a change made to the Blogroll gadget has appeared publicly without cache contamination by your local browser.

In the current state of affairs, Blogger’s feed cache is, again, the more likely culprit.  Blogger keeps its own cached copy of the feeds used by the Blogroll gadget.  Blogroll gadget sometimes holds on to an old copy of a blog’s feed.  Therefore, the gadget does not always notice a new post promptly even though the post was published correctly.  This condition is reinforced by seeing that many Wordpress blogs continue to show recent updates.  What we really need to do is bring out the heavy equipment and bust through the Blogroll cache that is holding back more recent posts.

One workaround is to use Google's own Feedburner's version of the blog’s feed.  Feedburner acts as a middleman.  It takes a fresh copy of the blog’s feed and provides a different feed address for the Blogroll to read.  That is why the Feedburner approach can be useful.  On the Feedburner page, your blog should be listed under "Your feeds."  Clicking on the three dots next your feed brings up a dropdown with "Refresh feed."  This choice forces Feedburner to fetch the current feed again.  If your Blogroll points to the Feedburner URL, it may retrieve the refreshed Feedburner version rather than relying on Blogger’s stale copy of the ordinary blog feed.  Now to be clear, PWJ still references the ordinary blog feed url in Blogroll.  That is, 

http://palousewargamingjournal.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

An alternative option that works for some is

http://palousewargamingjournal.blogspot.com/?alt=rss

After publishing a new blog post, open Feedburner website and click on "Refresh Feed."  That click ought to set the refresh in motion.  The key to remember is that Blogger’s Blogroll can still have its own cache. Resetting Feedburner cannot force Blogger to clear that cache or trigger Blogroll to poll immediately.

Note Very Well!

Do not rely on Feedburner as though it is a guaranteed repair.  Feedburner does not give you control over Blogger’s internal Blogroll cache.  This technique is best viewed as a practical workaround and not as a definitive solution.  Blogger still needs to resolve this issue.  Good practice to back up before making changes like this and test results.  Of course, YMMV.

If you give this a try, report back with your results.  If I see recent blogs popping up in my Blogroll, I will bet that some of you gave this workaround a try.  This technique worked for allowing PWJ to appear in Blogroll with its current and timely post, but I make no guarantees that this maneuver will work for everyone.  Enter these waters at your own risk!