My app’s URL: Smart Choice Benefits
I’ve created an app for my father in laws insurance business. A few months ago we removed a button allowing users to enroll new clients, but there are still a couple users with the button available, and working, on their app. A majority of users have the button removed, but what could be happening here?
Thanks
Is the button completely gone, or is it disabled with a visibility condition?
If the button was completely removed, I’m wondering if they still have an old version of the app cached on their device. If it’s part of a visibility condition, what is the condition you have set up? Do you happen to have another version of the app that uses the same sheet?
Hi Jeff, I have the same problem, I update my apps but my clients does not see the changes. How can I automate the cache refresh or force an automatic re-install?
How long ago did you make the changes?
Are you using automatic publishing or manual publishing?
What kind of changes are your making?
Had the user closed and reopened the app since you made the changes?
How long ago did you make the changes? : days
Are you using automatic publishing or manual publishing? : both, I use manual in my last issue and I see the changes in some devices but older version in others, trying with pc/mobiles/tablet. I solve it uninstalling and reinstaling, but this procedure is not nice for my clients
What kind of changes are your making? eg. Replace an uploaded image (animated gif), other: change the source of some image from fixed picture to a field based picture
Had the user closed and reopened the app since you made the changes? Yes, I try this usefull-for-all-problem solution, includes turn off my android.
I think this is a cache problem or somthing like that, so maybe I can solve it with some automatic cache refresh, but I don’t know how to do that with Glideapp
What image are you replacing? Is it an app icon logo or anything in the sign in screen by any chance?
When you replace an image, is the url staying the same, or does it recieve a new url? Do you change these images regularly, or is this just a one off situation?
I have this image issue in both cases, one is an image stored in our website, replace the .gif file but the app does not takes the change. The URL remains the same. This could be a cache problem in the website, I dont know, so I change the filename and solve the problem but I need to replace this .gif by month easely.
The other case is replacin images uploaded but I am not sure right now
Other case is changing the layout checkbox to take the colour theme from the device, when I unckeck this option my clients does not see the change (published and one day after)
All this issues can be solved deleting the cache data in all devices?
OK, be mindful that glide apps are basically webpages running on top of the browser. Browsers tend to cache things when possible. As for images, they are retrieved BY the app. They are not sent TO the app. If the url remains the same then it’s very likely that the app will retrieve the cached version.
There is a trick to get the image to update if the url remains the same. This is called a cache bust. Essentially you add a dummy query parameter to the image url with a value that changes either based on time or based on a value that is manually updated. What you do is create a template column and set it up like this:
{URL}&cachebust={VALUE}
Replace {URL} with the image column url. Replace {VALUE} with anything you want as long as it changes whenever the image is updated. It could be a timestamp, it could be a calculated math date so it could update every year, month, day, hour, minute, second. It could be a random string of text. It could number that you increment whenever the image is updated. Really anything as long as it changes at the same time that the image is updated. However, I really wouldn’t recommend using a current time based cache bust. If done incorrectly, you would have that image loading unnecessarily up to every 10 seconds, which would not be good. Instead use a value such as an Increment value, or a static timestamp.
With the query parameter in the url, the query parameter will be ignored by the app, but the url will change, causing a new version to re-cache.
Not sure I follow…
This is hard to say and may depend on the device and/or browser. I just tried it in one of my apps. I use dark mode on my android phone. I checked the box and within 10 seconds, the app switched to dark to match my phone theme. I then unchecked the box and within 10 seconds the app reverted back to light mode. So I my experience it works.
I will say this though. I feel that some things can get hard set when an app is installed. That is usually the app icon and splash screen color. To reset that you would need to uninstall the app, clear browser cache and possibly cookies for your app’s url, and then reinstall. This may or may not include the match device theme setting as a hard set value.
For any other type structural update, they usually migrate to all end users eventually within a handful of minutes, but a force close and reopen is usually enough to retrieve updated structural changes.
I would try the {URL}&cachebust={VALUE} solution, is a very good idea to set a global field with a version number and insert in this kind of values
Thanks you!
Juan