Note that I say “relatively simple”. That’s because there are basically four different levels of clearing site data from your browser.
Page Refresh “Hard” Page Refresh Empty Cache → the minimum step needed now Clearing Site Data
We all know step one and probably step two, I guess. They are performed by clicking the small “circle” or “curl” icon in the URL window or by pressing Cmd/Ctrl + R on your keyboard. Doing either will reload the page to bring in new site data, but in a rather superficial way. These are the right steps to take when the first load was interrupted by a connection problem, perhaps, or because your screen freezes – relatively harmless and common situations. Step two, the “hard” refresh, is done by adding the shift key and is a little more thorough.
Step four, the “delete site data” is probably also familiar to you. That’s what you do when you “clear your cache, including cookies”, which logs you out and deletes site data from your browser (not specifically from our servers/site archives). This step certainly does the job, and it is often necessary that browsers usually make it quite easy to perform. You have to login again after that and all the comments are unread but it makes everything shiny and clean.
So using step four will suffice in this case as well. But for this ckeditor glitch, it’s a little more than you need to do. For those interested in expanding your troubleshooting repertoire, we’d like to explain how to do step three, clearing your browser cache, which will fix the problem without logging you out or marking all comments as unread.
Special thanks to adamwhitley and elfling for their contributions to this post, although of course the usual disclaimers apply.
Clear your browser cache Chrome
1 Click the menu icon at the top right. 2 Go to More tools and click the Clear browsing data option. 3 Change the time range to ‘Always’ and uncheck ‘Browsing history’ and ‘Cookies and other site data’. 4 Click the Clear Data button.
Firefox
1 In the menu bar at the top of the screen, click Firefox and select Preferences. 2 Select the Privacy & Security panel. 3 In the Cookies and Site Data section, click Clear Data. 4 Uncheck “Cookies and Site Data” 5 Leave the check mark on “Cached Web Content” and click the Clear button.
Safari
1 Click the Safari tab in the top left corner of your screen and choose Preferences from the drop-down menu. 2 Click the Advanced tab of the menu that appears. 3 At the end of the tab, select the Show Develop menu in menu bar and close the Preferences menu. 4 Click the Develop tab in the Safari menu at the top of the page. 5 Click Clear Caches from the drop-down menu.
Side
1 Open Microsoft Edge, select Menu (3 dots icon in the top right corner of the browser) > Settings > Privacy and services. 2 Under Clear browsing data, select Choose what to clear. 3 Check the “Cached images and files” check box but not the “Cookies and other site data” check box, then select Clear.
Of course, we’d still love to see you at the Helpdesk if needed. But these troubleshooting techniques are worth keeping in your back pocket to pull out and apply whenever you run into problems with our site (or whatever). We sincerely believe that it is desirable, even fun, to learn new ways to confidently and independently navigate our online environment. Thank you for joining us!