stability: Sporadic missing fields and images (A2 specific features enabled)

Short version:
Enabling the plugin made my site unstable such that not only could new changes not take effect (which is easy to test) but I had to test every little piece of the site because random parts would just disappear on different pages each time I made changes to the site.

Long detailed version:
My site is on WordPress with Elementor Pro (customized Hello Theme). I’m on A2hosting’s Turbo Max plan. So the A2 specific features of the plugin can be used.

I enabled A2optimized from this screen under cpanel (https://ibb.co/RYhyWZ2), it installed the A2optimized plugin and the W3 total cache, all the options shown in the image were enabled including all the optimization options (Swiftcache/Memcached/TurboCache). Within wordpress, all the possible optimization options were enabled and showed a green checkmark, the warnings tab had no warnings.

In terms of webserver, the (LiteSpeed Web Cache Manager) is on default (disabled) for my wordpress installation.

I was initially on A2’s drive plan which couldn’t really handle this plugin due to resource limitations and the main page would load in 10.5 seconds. On switching to the top tier shared hosting (Turbo Max) plan, the load time was reduce to 5.5 seconds before enabling caching. After caching using this plugin was enabled, the load time went down to 2.5 seconds, and every page on the site would load really fast the first time around and instantly the second time. It was a huge difference.

Then I discovered the problems. The way this works should be such that whatever you change is automatically cleared from the cache so only it gets updated automatically on next load. However Caching is disabled for the admin user by default. So I found that when I made changes to the site, I would see them when logged in but no one else would. I had to not only log out, but clear all browser data from chrome and firefox and retest every part of the site.

So I wanted to figure out where to clear the cache from. It wasn’t clear what the recommended way to do this was since there were so many places and caches to consider.

The W3 plugin has menu options to clear each cache separately disk cache, db cache, media query string and many others. A2optimized was showing a warning when you open the W3 screen that there is no need to adjust any options there.

An option on each post/page was shown to clear it from the cache right which was useful if that specific page didn’t show up.

From cpanel A2 optimized screen, an option to clear cache appears under (Turbocache) section. This last one was usually the one I had the most luck with in that using it alone would allow my changes to take effect, without breaking new ones.

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What problems were caused:

– I have a photo on top of every page, in some cases when clearing the cache, the whole photo would be missing. The photos are all optimized and sized. This would happen randomly on a different photo whenever clearing cache. I would try to open the page and resave it, or clearing the cache again until the issue is fixed. It never happens if A2optimized is uninstalled.

– I have a standard elementor form (contact request) and (demo request), they have a few fields including a (Name) field. On clearing the cache, the names fields on the forms would disappear, I would have to open the page, resave it, try to rename the field, but usually, changing position, saving, then changing it back and saving fixes it. It never happens if A2optimized is uninstalled.

– I have a typical pricing table with 3 columns for different plans, sometimes on clearing cache, the columns would get distorted so the headers are unreadable. It never happens if A2optimized is uninstalled.

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Conclusion: While the benefit from the speed is awesome, the cost on stability is unacceptable and forced me to uninstall the plugin for now, which is sad since these turbo features are part of what is advertised on the hosting plan, along with additional related costs I’m sure. It would be great if this can be fixed even if I can turn off some options that might have greater impact on stability, but I don’t know where to start as there are so many options in A2optimized and W3.

The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]