in Journal, Technology

Strange issue with site – DNS may be..

We shifted servers a few days back, but we seem to have some interesting problems. Right now, I see a two different versions of this blog in Firefox and Safari. Both point to same IP. Safari shows old version, Firefox shows new version.

Puzzled!

two-sites-same-domain

Solved it!

This took much longer to figure out, but it was a very interesting catch! Here are some notes.

  • We were checking the site from same network, same internet connection, same DNS servers. Firefox and Safari on my machine showed different versions of the blog.
  • Cleared browser cache – did not work.
  • Checked DNS – no problem. Everything was pointing to the new server correctly. This ruled out the possibility of DNS cache causing the problem.
  • Removed all site content from the old server and put up a blank index page. Interestingly, that did not show up. We continued to see the site. This confirmed that it is not really a DNS cache problem.
  • Checked Apache access logs – all requests were going through the new server. But still showing different designs.
  • We started thinking where else could the cache be? Now that the problem is on the server.
  • And Eureka! WordPress Super Cache was the culprit. I did clear the cache after setting up new design – as I suspected it first – but somehow the cache was not cleared. I should have manually deleted all cache files, rather than relying on the plugin to do it.
  • Deleted all WP Super Cache files and folders and everything started working!

Thanks to everyone who helped. Sujeet reported the problem first, Akshay suggested a solution, Aamod commented on the design, Kunal reported a problem with comment posting and Alan from my systems team found the real cause. I am touched by your support.

And what more? R. Bhavesh even offered to redesign the template! Thank you!

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  1. Clean. But didn’t like it.

    hey nirav, I have been reading your blog since 3+ years and If you’d let me, I would love to create a theme based on your requirement. Do email me your ideas and I can send you mockups as giveback 🙂 .

  2. Hi Bhavesh,

    Thanks for the offer! I am sure this template can be customized to fit my needs better.

    Sending you an email 😉

    :Nirav