Caching & Refresh Problems
Cache exclusions
Section titled “Cache exclusions”Configure your cache/CDN to bypass:
- Cart, Checkout, My Account, and winner payment pages.
- Pages with personalized watchlist or customer-auction shortcodes.
- Auction bid and live-update requests, including
admin-ajax.phpand WooCommerce AJAX requests used by the plugin. - Requests carrying the
auction-cronquery parameter.
Review full-page caching for active auction and lot pages. Bid forms contain nonces and personalized eligibility states; a stale shared page can display expired or incorrect information.
Object cache troubleshooting
Section titled “Object cache troubleshooting”Open Auctions → Settings → Tools → Object Cache Status to check whether WordPress reports a persistent object cache and view the plugin’s cache policy. This status does not verify the cache backend’s behavior.
If auction data remains stale after checking full-page caching and live-update requests, enable Non-Persistent Auction Cache → Disable persistent caching for plugin data only and select Save cache settings. The option is disabled by default; changes apply from the next request.
With this option enabled, auction cache data stays in request-local memory, including when the backend ignores non-persistent cache groups. Switching modes prevents old plugin entries from being reused. WordPress and WooCommerce cache groups are unchanged.
Retest the affected auction with two customer sessions. Disable the option and save again to restore the default policy after troubleshooting. Under the default policy, persistent caching is allowed when an external object cache is active; auction entries are invalidated after relevant changes and expire within five minutes.
Bid rejected after a page was left open
Section titled “Bid rejected after a page was left open”Refresh the page and check the displayed amount, auction state, login state, and error message. An expired security token needs a refreshed form. A rejected request should not be treated as an accepted bid.
Price or status does not refresh
Section titled “Price or status does not refresh”- Check Ajax Check Bid settings.
- Inspect failed browser requests and their status codes.
- Check whether caching, security rules, or a login redirect changed the response.
- Test with script optimization disabled on staging.
- Verify that closing cron processing runs.
After resolving the cause, test with two customer sessions. One browser alone cannot show that other bidders’ updates arrive correctly.