7 Way To Fix WordPress Theme Not Saving Changes
I’m sure most of you have faced this problem quite often. Sometimes your WordPress theme not saving changes, the front end doesn’t show up the changes even though see that the back end changes are saved. Why WordPress is not showing the changes! Don’t worry today I will show ways to fix the “WordPress changes not showing up” problem. It doesn’t matter whether its theme changes or CSS changes or JavaScript changes. Following these steps will help you to troubleshoot the problem. Without further ado let’s dive into the solution
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The Browser Cache
What the heck is browser cache? When you first time visits a page it takes time to fully load the page but after the first visit, the browsing experience for that website gets better. You know why? Because the first time visit loads up all the resources in your web browser, and the web browser stores that information into your computer.
In the future, When you visit the site again, the web browser reloads the web page data from your computer, not from the actual site. The place where this web page data is stored is called the cache. Sometimes WordPress theme not saving changes directly attributes to the cache. The cache is an essential way to optimize your web browsing experience. Often times WordPress theme changes not working because the cache version is being served. All most every website use cache to improve visitors’ web browsing experience into their site. Now, how you do you clear cache from browsers?
1.1 How to clear Cache in Chrome browser:
- On your computer, open Chrome.
- At the top right, click More
.
- Click More tools
Clear browsing data.
- Choose a time range, like the last hour or all time.
- Select the types of information you want to remove.
- Click Clear browsing data.
Note: If you sync a type of data, deleting it on your computer will delete it everywhere it’s synced. It’ll be removed from other devices and your Google Account.
There’s also another way to clear the cache on Chrome-
- On your computer, open Chrome.
- At the top right, click More
- Click More tools
- Left click and hold the page reload icon
- Select “Empty Cache and Hard Reload”
More information regarding Chrome browser cache clear can be found in Clear browsing data.
1.12 How to clear Cache in Firefox browser:
- Open Firefox browser
- Click the menu button and choose .
- Select the panel.
- In the Cached Web Content section, click .
- Close the about:preferences page. Any changes you’ve made will automatically be saved.
You can set Firefox to automatically clear the cache when Firefox closes:
- Click the menu button and choose .
- Select the panel.
- In the History section, set Firefox will to .
- Select the check box for Clear history when Firefox closes.
- Beside Clear history when Firefox closes, click the button. The Settings for Clearing History window will open.
- In the Settings for Clearing History window, put a check mark next to Cache.
1.13 How to clear Cache in Safari browser:
To clear your history and cookies –
- Open Safari then Settings > Safari > Clear History and Website Data.
To clear your cookies and keep your history –
- Open Safari then Settings > Safari > Advanced > Website Data > Remove All Website Data.
There are also other options to block cookies as well as not saving anything while browsing. For more information visit – Apple support page
1.14 How to clear Cache in Internet Explorer(11) browser:
- Open IE 11
- Click on the gear wheel in the top right corner
- Click on Safety in the menu
- Click on Delete browsing history in the submenu
- Select Temporary Internet files and website files from the list
- Click on Delete
- On the bottom of the page, the browser notifies you when the browser cache is cleared
1.15 How to clear Cache in Microsoft Edge browser:
- Open browser
- Click on the
- Click Settings
- Click Choose what to clear
- Select Cookies & saved website data files and select Cache data and files
- Now Press Clear
1.16 How to clear Cache in Opera browser:
- Open browser
- Type opera:cache into the address field.
- Go to Settings > Preferences > Advanced > History
Now you will see a couple of options, Choose the one you feel comfortable.
| Action | How to do it | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Empty the cache | Click | This deletes all cached content from the disk |
| Change cache disk size | Choose the size from the drop-down list | Increase this if you want to keep more local copies of pages, and for longer. Zero means that writing to disk will be avoided as far as possible. |
| Empty cache on exit | Check Empty on exit. | This deletes the cache automatically every time you exit Opera |
| Change how often cached pages are checked for updates | In the Check if cached page is updated on the server section, select a less-frequent time interval from the drop-down list for either documents or images | The browser checks for new versions when you revisit a page, even though most web content is not updated very often. Checking for changes less often may speed up browsing. Note that you may sometimes have to reload to get the newest version. |
For more information visit – Opera Cache Help
By following these guidelines you can resolve your “WordPress CSS cache” and “WordPress clear cache” issue with ease. Also, visit the respective browser support pages to know more.
2. The Browser Cache
Sometimes the web host you use cache files for your website. To make the website appear faster when visitors’ browsing. Some host does it by default while other hosts require you to manually turn on the server caching for the website. You may be able to turn this off via your web host’s configuration panel or cPanel.
Just last week, I was about to pull off my hair because my WordPress CSS not changing and I cleared my browser cache quite a few times. Then, it hit me that my WordPress CSS not updating has something to do with browser cache and found out SiteGround indeed using server caching. I clear the server cache and it cleared the WordPress CSS cache. Sure enough, the problem was gone.
Flash cache in SiteGround – How to clear SiteGround Server Cache?
Clear cache in GoDaddy – Clearing the Server Cache Using Website Accelerator
Clear cache in Bluehost – How To Clear And Turn Off Server Cache On Bluehost
Managed WordPress hosting also includes server-side caching, If you are using one please check with your managed WordPress hosting stuff to flash the cache or turn it off. Also, If you are using a caching HTTP reverse proxy such as Varnish on your web server, edits to your files may not appear right away. Edits may become visible after some length of time when the cached version expires. You need to tune your caching system in order to eliminate this issue. Contact with your respective managed WordPress support stuff to resolve WordPress not saving changes related problems.
3. Plugin Cache
Plugins, especially caching or speed/performance increasing plugins will mostly use cache to speed up your website. Some WordPress plugins also add cache functionality to your WordPress site. This helps your site load faster because WordPress can retrieve the pages of your blog from the cache instead of generating them all over again. Depending upon the plugin you need to check and clear the cache. I’m including cache clearing guidelines for popular WordPress plugins –
- W3 Total Cache – How to clear W3 Total Cache’s Cache
- WP Fastest Cache – Clear cache
- WP Rocket – Clear WP Rocket Cache
- WP Super Cache –
4. CDN Cache
CDN stands for Content Delivery Network and they are in charging of enhancing end user’s internet experience. CDN’s utilize their own servers which are located in between the origin infrastructure (server where the content is actually present) and the end users which are called Edge Servers. CDNs cache content in edge server and edge servers are located closer to the end user which means faster access as the distance to traverse is shorter.
Caching is part of CDN – Caching is one of the mechanisms that CDNs utilize to accelerate the internet. However, CDNs are much more beyond caching. There are various other mechanisms like compression, route selection between edge and origin, prefetching embedded links and most importantly reducing the distance to fetch content for the end user i.e. ensuring edge servers are closer to end users.
You need to check your respective CDN provider to clear the cache. I’m including popular CDN guidelines to clear the cache –
Clearing CDN cache sometimes, clear all the cache including WordPress CSS cache
5. Coding Typo/Mistakes
Often times WordPress will refuse to save changes, and sometimes it has to do with the coding error. The general rule of thumb is that You don’t leave out any empty blank spaces in the PHP file. Often, some people usually prefer to not use ?> at all to avoid unpredictable errors. For WordPress JS not updating, you can check JS console in the browser, for Chrome press Clt+Shift+I and head over to the console tab. If you see text in error color that means your code is wrong and you need to fix that.
Most JS code won’t execute properly if errors are not resolved. So, be sure to check them out before coming to any conclusion.
6. Working in wrong directory/file
I know, chances of happening this are slim. But sometimes we do make mistakes like this. So, don’t forget to check whether you are actually working in the correct theme files and folders. Pay very close attention to the difference between style1.css and stylel.css if you are using different style names, too. The first filename is style followed by the digit one, while the second filename is style followed by a lowercase L. If you are working with different but similar files, make sure you give them distinctive names like style-red.css and style-800.css so you can clearly see the difference.
If you’re editing a template, are you sure that the page you’re viewing is being generated from that template? Remember that many templates contain very similar text. For example, a post header may appear on a single post page, an index page, a search page, or an archive page, to name a few.
7. DNS Resolution Delay
If you have recently moved into the new web server and migrating your site, it’s possible that the DNS is not properly propagated and not completed. Your browsers might be getting the page from the old server. So, it will show the old content.
WordPress theme not saving changes along with other common problems like – WordPress can’t save changes, WordPress clear CSS cache, WordPress CSS not changing, WordPress clear cache, WordPress not saving changes and WordPress JS not updating, most of these problems are directly related and can troubleshoot via these steps. Let me in the comment, if these steps helped you to solve the issue.