Clearing Browser Cache for RoboHelp Updates

Report · May 07, 2013

Using Adobe RoboHelp 10 - RoboHelp HTML , our team works on a merged project with several child projects. When updates are made, we generate as WebHelp and then copy the contents of the "!SSL!" > "WebHelp" folder and paste it into our test web server. Upon successful testing, we then copy the contents from the test web server and paste it into our production web server. The issue that we're encountering is that our team of developers, our internal customers, and our external customers are experiencing issues with not seeing the current version (and/or encounter issues with the search functionality) until they manually clear their browser's cache. This does not seem to be an issue for ALL users or ALL the time (people and time is sporadic).

Is there a RoboHelp setting or coding that should be entered in the project to force the browser to clear the cache in order to ensure that the users are seeing the most current information?

Thank you in advance for your assistance, this is a critical issue for our users and we need to find a solution as soon as possible.

Nikki Williams

Report · May 07, 2013

Hi Nikki.

Unfortunately no such setting exists in RoboHelp. This issue could be being caused either by the individual user's browser cache or the web server's own cache. Through in the myriad of different browsers and trying to script something doesn't bear thinking about.

You could try deleting all the content from the server just prior to copying the content to it. Also rebooting the server should get rid of any cache on it.

Report · May 07, 2013

@Colum - Wasn’t there a recent thread that described adding something to the generated HTML code to stop or clear the cache?

Report · May 07, 2013

Jeff I think you may well be right. I've found the following:

You can prevent browser cache simply by including a special META tag within your HTML code. Add the following code between the <HEAD> and </HEAD> tags of your HTML.

Let us know if this works Nikki.

Report · May 07, 2013

Thank you both! Just to clarify, does this META tag need to be included in the HTML code of each individual topic or the HTML of the index file?

Report · May 07, 2013

It would have to be added to each individual topic, but if you use a Master Page you could add it once there and it would propagate through to any topic it was connected to.

Report · May 07, 2013

Thank you, we'll try this and let you know the results!