Website Updates for 2021-10-25: Revamped Server Caching

Alright folks, this is potentially a big'n. For months, we've been struggling with some server caching issues that affected avatar updates, and other miscellaneous oddities. For example, if you uploaded a new avatar or changed a setting in your profile, you might not have seen the changes right away. Of course, that could be frustrating, as you might try to do it over and over again without ever finding success.

I don't want to get too ahead of myself, but I think I've finally found and fixed the problem(s). But I'm already seeing a huge improvement. My first clue was the "Latest Post" and "Our Newest Member" in the stats bar below the forums -- they used to take awhile to update and would often skip a few items, but they seem to be working as they are supposed to now.

So... if you've tried to upload a new avatar or update any of your profile information without success, I would suggest that you give it try now. To be sure, however, it wouldn't hurt to clear your browser's cache first -- a quick and easy way to do that is to visit your profile (the Account tab), hit CTRL F5 on your PC's keyboard (APPLE SHIFT R on Macs), then try to update something. It "should" work now, but please let me know if it doesn't (and what behavior you experience).

This update should have even further reach into other issues, so I'm hopeful that many little oddities throughout the forums are behaving more like they should now. ?????ÿ

As a bonus, the overall website seems faster, too. ????ÿ