Most likely a caching issue.
When you make your changes and update, try pressing “Ctrl+F5” on the front-end of your website to “force” a page reload.
See, all css stylesheets get called by the browser when first visiting the site. Then, they are stored there temporarily. If you make a change in your stylesheet… the browser may not immediately reflect the change.
So, by forcing a refresh… it will cause the stylesheet to be reloaded into the browser.
Hi Josh,
Thanks for the reply.
I had thought of that and tried it on my Mac but to no avail. To check it’s not a safari issue, I’ve looked at my site in Firfox and it’s the same [I can see the old CSS in Firebug] so I don’t think it’s a problem my end. Looking at the CSS file in wp-admin, the changes are there but not being applied – it’s like an old copy of the CSS file is being used.
steve
Are you using a plugin in your site which caches the webpages?
If you are, there is probably a setting to “empty page caches” or something similar.
Lastly, make sure you are editing the correct file. You might be editing a file which doesn’t have anything to do with what you are trying to change. Trust me… I’ve done that many times 😉
Some servers also have caching enabled on their end. Godaddy for one tends to do that and updates can take a few minutes to appear.
Thanks Cristine. I wasn’t aware of that. The more I hear about GoDaddy… the more I wonder… 🙂
Hi Josh and Christine,
Thanks again for responding.
I’ve restarted my Mac and looking at my site, the CSS has stuck which kind of suggests an issue my end!
This is a recent problem: previously, whenever I changed the CSS in wp-admin the changes took affect immediately.
There are no active ‘cache’ plug-ins and I’m 100% sure I’m editing the right theme CSS file.
Christine’s answer got me thinking. Not long ago I opted in for a new facility at my web host [Dreamhost] called CloudFlare Services. I disabled this and went into wp-admin and did a quick ‘n’ easy CSS edit [body background colour from #CCC to #FFF] but my site didn’t change background colour so maybe it’s not that [or disabling CloudFlare Services takes time!].
One thing I’ve noticed is that if I’m not active in wp-admin for any length of time I’m asked to log-in again – but maybe that’s normal.
steve
I’m on Dreamhost and have no issues, but I do think that Cloudfare sounds like it’s the culprit. It is meant for speeding up your site by caching info. I think that disabling it is a good idea.
Hi Christine,
I’ve left CloudFlare Services disabled and I’ll see how things go – as I say, it may tale a while for CloudFlare Services to be disabled.
Thanks again.
steve
An update. Cloudflare on Dreamhost has been disabled for a week now but the problem persists. I tried changing the body background colour from the current grey to black and it won’t stick.
Back in Dreamhost just now, I noticed I had ‘Page Speed Optimization’ enabled so I’ve disabled that and will report back – I bet you can’t wait!!!!
Are you using a child theme to change the css?
Try making the changes with a different editor. Sign into your hosted account and use whatever file manager they have to make changes. When saved there and wordpress is reloaded it should work.
First off, it’s not ‘Page Speed Optimization’ – the problem still persists. I’m thinking it’s not host related.
kmessinger – thanks for the reply. It’s not a child theme css file. I don’t have a theme as such as the whole site was borne out of an Adobe WordPress/Dreamweaver/MAMP tutorial with no established theme so the theme, such as it is, evolved from that! There are no updates to the theme apart from what I do. Looking back, I should have started with a normal theme but I’m too far gone now.
Anyway, I don’t think it’s theme related as this hasn’t always been a problem – it’s quite a recent development.
Editing the CSS file and then uploading it does make the site change almost immediately. I guess I could work this way but sometimes I just need to change a tiny bit of CSS …
steve
[puzled!]
I make all my css changes in Dreamweaver and then upload. The advantage of dw over the wp editor is the undo button – that is very handy!
I have the same workflow – I can mess things up [which I often do!] locally and not affect the real site.
I think I’ll just have to live with the inconvenience of editing the CSS within wp not updating immediately – maybe it’ll sort itself out.
