I have a web application published on IIS. All of my JS files are called from my static html file called "Index.html". In that html file, I call each JS file with the <script> tag, and in order to manage our versions and perform updates without user's history and cache deleting, I've added the ?v={version} at the end of each JS file's URL as the following:
<script src="./app.js?v=20161226.1" />
After multiple version updates, I've noticed that the users still need to refresh the page in order to get the latest Index.html file. After searching the Developer Tools of chrome, and looking in the Network section in the Developer Tools, I've managed to notice that the Index.html file is loaded from the cache (shown the "(from cache)" sign in the Network).
After searching the web for any solution for uncaching .html files (Because there is no ?v={version} for my .html file), I've found that adding:
<meta http-equiv="cache-control" content="no-cache" />
<meta http-equiv="expires" content="0" />
<meta http-equiv="pragma" content="no-cache" />
isn't solving the issue and the my Index.html file is still loaded from the cache.
I'm updaing my web application each two weeks and I can't afford myself letting the users deleting the cache and history each version update because the new and latest .html file is loaded because it is cached.
The only thing that helps is refreshing (F5) and then the Index.html file is reloaded (Not loaded from cache and the latest version of that Index.html file is shown). But if someone types the url and enters it in the URL-bar, the Index.html is still loaded from the cache.
Is there anything I've done wrong and should add anything else? Is there anything to do to solve this issue at all?
Thanks!
Putting a query string on the end of a URL is a (good) hack to allow you to set the HTTP cache control headers to cache for a long time for infrequently changed resources and still force the new version to load on those occasions that you do change it.
If you are frequently updating your HTML, then just set the cache control headers to tell the browser to check for updates more frequently. Take advantage of Etags or If-Modified-Since instead of depending on an Expires header set far in the future.
NB: You have to use real HTTP headers.
<meta http-equiv>is a bad joke.