NodeJS express Cache and 304 status code

Question

When I reload a website made with express  I get a blank page with Safari  not with Chrome  because the NodeJS server sends me a 304 status code   How to solve this   Of course  this could also be just a problem of Safari  but actually it works on all other websites fine  so it has to be a problem on my NodeJS server  too   To generate the pages  I m using Jade with res render   Update  It seems like this problem occurs because Safari sends  cache-control    max-age 0  on reload   Update 2  I now have a workaround  but is there a better solution  Workaround   app get    language     content languageSelector       page   function  req  res           Disable caching for content files     res header  Cache-Control    no-cache  no-store  must-revalidate        res header  Pragma    no-cache        res header  Expires   0           rendering stuff here        Update 3  So the complete code part is currently   app get    language     content languageSelector       page   pageHandle    function pageHandle  req  res        var language   req params language      var thisPage   content getPage req params page  language        if  thisPage                   Disable caching for content files         res header  Cache-Control    no-cache  no-store  must-revalidate            res header  Pragma    no-cache            res header  Expires   0            res render thisPage file         language                thisPage   thisPage              language  language              languages  content languages              navigation  content navigation              footerNavigation  content footerNavigation              currentYear  new Date   getFullYear                         else               error404Handling req  res

User · Answer

I had the same problem in Safari and Chrome (the only ones I've tested) but I just did something that seems to work, at least I haven't been able to reproduce the problem since I added the solution. What I did was add a metatag to the header with a generated timstamp. Doesn't seem right but it's simple :)

<meta name="304workaround" content="2013-10-24 21:17:23">

Update P.S As far as I can tell, the problem disappears when I remove my node proxy (by proxy i mean both express.vhost and http-proxy module), which is weird...

User · Answer

Easiest solution   app disable  etag      Alternate solution here if you want more control   http   vlasenko org 2011 10 12 expressconnect-static-set-last-modified-to-now-to-avoid-304-not-modified

User · Answer

As you said  Safari sends Cache-Control  max-age 0 on reload  Express  or more specifically  Express s dependency  node-fresh  considers the cache stale when Cache-Control  no-cache headers are received  but it doesn t do the same for Cache-Control  max-age 0  From what I can tell  it probably should  But I m not an expert on caching   The fix is to change  what is currently  line 37 of node-fresh index js from  if  cc  amp  amp  cc indexOf  no-cache       -1  return false      to  if  cc  amp  amp   cc indexOf  no-cache       -1      cc indexOf  max-age 0       -1   return false    I forked node-fresh and express to include this fix in my project s package json via npm  you could do the same  Here are my forks  for example   https   github com stratusdata node-fresh https   github com stratusdata express safari-reload-fix  The safari-reload-fix branch is based on the 3 4 7 tag

User · Answer

Operating system  Windows Browser  Chrome  I used Ctrl   F5 keyboard combination  By doing so  instead of reading from cache  I wanted to get a new response  The solution is to do hard refresh the page  On MDN Web Docs    quot The HTTP 304 Not Modified client redirection response code indicates that there is no need to retransmit the requested resources  It is an implicit redirection to a cached resource  quot

User · Answer

Old question  I know  Disabling the cache facility is not needed and not the best way to manage the problem  By disabling the cache facility the server needs to work harder and generates more traffic  Also the browser and device needs to work harder  especially on mobile devices this could be a problem    The empty page can be easily solved by using Shift key reload button at the browser    The empty page can be a result of    a bug in your code  while testing you served an empty page  you can t remember  that is cached by the browser  a bug in Safari  if so  please report it to Apple and don t try to fix it yourself    Try first the Shift keyboard key   reload button and see if the problem still exists and review your code

User · Answer

Try using private browsing in Safari or deleting your entire cache cookies   I ve had some similar issues using chrome when the browser thought it had the website in its cache but actually had not   The part of the http request that makes the server respond a 304 is the etag  Seems like Safari is sending the right etag without having the corresponding cache

[node.js] NodeJS/express: Cache and 304 status code

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