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Caching bug in iOS 5 Safari

By , Friday, Nov 4, 2011 at 10:31 am
46

On some websites, like CNN shown in the video above, when I hit "back" to return to the previous page, instead of getting the previous page I get a version of the previous page that's from some time in the past, as much as a day or so. I've also had this happen on sites like Reddit. Unless Apple included highly advanced tachyon-based time travel functionality in iOS 5, there's some problem between the web server, the cache, mobile Safari, and my eyes that's conspiring to give me pages from the past.

Problem

  • Go to a web page in Safari
  • Tap a link
  • Tap the "back" button

You get an older version of the web page you just left.

Work around

  • Tap the "reload" button

That gets Safari to render the page again. You can also clear the cache. That seems to alleviate the problem, at least for a while.

  • Launch Settings
  • Tap on Safari
  • Tap on Advanced
  • Tap on Website Data
  • Tap on Remove all Website Data

I haven't tried this in iOS 5.0.1 yet and it may well be fixed in that build, otherwise here's hoping Apple fixes it soon.

iOS 5 safari caching bug

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  1. joechicago says:

    Yes that has definitely happened to me too, sometimes the page it loads is 3 or 4 days old.

  2. Pivale says:

    No such problem here... Maybe jb problem?

  3. Garz says:

    Tried that on iOS 5.0.1 on the CNN page. No issues here. Did the same as the video.

  4. Garz says:

    Tried this on the same CNN website. Everything was fine on iOS 5.0.1.

  5. Tz616379 says:

    I believe you meant to type "iOS 5.0.1" rather than "iOS 5.1" because the latter doesn't exist, yet.

  6. Icebox93 says:

    I've seen this behavior when browsing the forums here on iOS 5 Safari. Look at a new post then hit the back button and the post you're looking at isn't in the list! The strange thing is I didn't notice this behavior until yesterday and I've been using iOS 5 for several weeks now.

  7. cardfan says:

    Couldn't replicate the "bug." Everything worked normally on my ipad. Maybe the problem is on your end.

  8. cardfan says:

    Couldn't replicate the "bug." Everything worked normally on my ipad. Maybe the problem is on your end.

  9. Jamie says:

    This happens to me with tipb all the time on my 4S on iOS 5. Happened with my old 3GS on ios 4 as well.

  10. Melvin says:

    Noticed this problem in the first week of upgrading to ios 5. Thought it was limited to my unit only. True, reloading the page is the best solution

  11. Anonymous says:

    Yes, it happens to me all the times. But I'm more concerned about the fact that Safari crashes way more often than before the update (iPad 1, no JB)

  12. ray says:

    This is corrected in 5.0.1 as I no longer get this issue in Safari at all.

  13. Gorflin says:

    Same problem for me, also safari crashes quite a lot

  14. Gorflin says:

    Same problem for me, also safari crashes quite a lot

  15. Cjvitek says:

    That happens to me on the TiPB page.

    Chris

  16. Justin_L says:

    I'm not having this issue with mine either.

  17. Justin_L says:

    I'm not having this issue with mine either.

  18. George DW says:

    This bug isn't new at all. I've gotten it since before 4.0, though I haven't seen it in a while. Might be that one of the 4.x's fixed it and 5.0 brought it back?

  19. Vlequang says:

    I have the same problem running on 4.3.3 (jailbroken)

  20. Samoilija says:

    Happens on my (not jailbroken) iPad as well, definately an iOS 5 bug.

  21. Samoilija says:

    Happens on my (not jailbroken) iPad as well, definately an iOS 5 bug.

  22. Chrislmckinney says:

    I have been having this problem since 4.0!!

  23. Felface says:

    THIS ISN'T NEWS!!!! THIS HAS BEEN A BUG IN SAFARI FOR ABSOULTELY AGES!!! THIS ISN'T NEWS

    • Anonymous says:

      Not only that, a time machine has been built into the Mac OS for years.

      "Unless Apple included highly advanced tachyon-based time travel functionality in iOS 5...."

      Could be?

  24. Anonymous says:

    Happens all the time in here. Tap back, and get posts from the day before. Just hit home, and it reloads current page. This was going on before iOS5. Did not happen until the last version of iOS4. May be a bug carried over.

  25. Anonymous says:

    Happens all the time in here. Tap back, and get posts from the day before. Just hit home, and it reloads current page. This was going on before iOS5. Did not happen until the last version of iOS4. May be a bug carried over.

  26. Anonymous says:

    I've had this problem on iOS 4.x on multiple devices. Will be nice to see it finally fixed!

  27. Dshanah says:

    I've noticed this several times since upgrading original iPad to iOS 5. So far I haven't seen it on my iPhone 4S, perhaps because I do less browsing on it. Despite others saying it’s been around since 4.x I've never seen it prior to 5.0.

  28. Dagalligani says:

    I've had same problem. Thought it was just me thanks Anthony hope it's fixed by Apple. I also have problem in google search. After google gives me search results and I click on one of them and nothing happens. I have to open in safari to get results.

  29. Anonymous says:

    I had this problem before iOS 5 as well.

  30. Gryphon says:

    Still exists on 5.01 too. Not as frequent, but still there.

  31. Mike_gh says:

    Still not fixed in 5.0.1. Too bad.

  32. 5.0.1 Still the same problem, also when u make a web app it never updates the images. When i delete all my images and check my webapp it still has all the images on it. This also means it never update the images like the app logo ...

    I hope they fix this fast!

  33. Cjgwriter56 says:

    This has been appending to me on my iPad 1 since ios5 update. Ios5.01 did not fix. I did not have this issue before iOS 5. I did a complete wipe of iPad thought it was fixed for awhile (about 10 days) but its loading cached pages again. Also, I have blank calendar pages upon opening of Calendar. Crashes haven't begun yet but I'm not hopeful. iOS 5 really sucks.

  34. Mike Darcy says:

    I see this problem frequently with many different websites. I'm using iPhone 4s with 5.0.1

  35. Yene says:

    Same here , which keep on breaking mysite. using back button a page is never reloaded from server. good for simple website, but i think this is silly bug and hard to fix.

  36. David Miller says:

    I have the same issue with iOS 5.1.1. I have eLearning pages that I created and the "main" pages have modal windows to show videos. Everything works as expected in IE8/9, FF, Chrome Safari, and Opera except for using the back button on the iPad. When "main" page is returned to via the back button, it's modal window video is layered on top of the page, rather than being hidden until called for.

    All other browsers on both PC and Mac work fine, the video is not visible when the back button is used, only on the iPad.

    This is very similar to this article's issue.

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