There are quite a few different browsers and if you also spread this out on the different OSes and devices, then the number gets quite big.
It will be hard to document all this and it will also have to b kept up to date, so a way of monitoring browser updates and test for changes is needed.
These resources would have to be taken from other projects, so I prefer that the users themself search for the way their particular setup is cleared.
I think the problem is the use of front end instead of browser. A lot of times people don’t make the connection. Clearing your browser’s cache is internet 101.
Until now, when I got that message I just restarted Chrome on my PC and everything seemed fine - so I assumed that was all that was needed.
What if I’m using the HA android app as well? Do I also need to do something on my phone (and I suppose also separately on my tablet)? Or do the apps take care of this automatically?
You either force close & restart the app, or else you go to the app settings (on your phone/tablet, not inside the app itself) and select “Clear Cache”
Maybe also because the frontend usually means the web server and/or the actual application being served by it - as opposed to the backend, which is normally where most of the business logic and database is.
Unfortunately here is no good “known” word for it. In a browser it is named the browser cache, but for the companion apps that isn’t the right word. Android calls it the the app cache, for the IOS companion app it is named the front end cache. If you’d ask some one to clear the browser cache on IOS, they’d go to Safari, which is the wrong place.
HA is still very much a product for tinkerers abd DIY people and will very likely stay that way, so people will have to do something themself and this is an issue with a third party product.
There is no such thing as a “front end cache” for this application. It does not have a caching reverse proxy in front of it, which is what that term means.
You are incorrect there there is “no good ‘known’ word” for it. It is the browser cache which every browser has had since browsers were invented. Safari is the correct place to clear the browser cache on iOS because it is the browser. The HA mobile app is just a browser – a thin client – that uses whatever the native browser SDK for the mobile platform is. It’s literally the same thing.
I agree!
Browser cache is a better wording.
Using browser in there means people can google how to do it on their browser and we then mostly have to deal with the companion app cache, which ordinary people do not see as a browser, but it is still better than now where we have to deal with it both on the companion app AND the browsers.
I’m working on pull requests – across at least three different HA repositories – to finally get this done. If you want this feature request, watch this space for a link to the PRs.
@lubarb You need to change the title of this feature request to “Correct mistaken references to a ‘frontend cache’ in HA UI” or I will have to make another. Documentation will not solve this problem.
Though the browser engine is shared between Safari and HA, clearing the Safari cache wil NOT clear the Companion app cache. They do not share data. So clearing the browser cache of Safari is not what they need to do. They need to go to the companion app settings and clear the thing there. So while technically it is a browser cache, the Companion app is not the browser (Safari is the browser), even though it uses the browser engine.
So I stand by my words and strongly disagree that Browser cache is less confusing. The fact that you are technically right does not mean it is right in the mind of the regular user.
What you clear on a phone or mobile device is the companion app cache. But you cannot use that word, because you do not know if the user is using the companion app or the browser. There lies the problem that there is no word that is right in both situations.
Technically the companion apps are just styled browsers, so browser cache is not completely wrong and it will still be better that many users know what browser cache is and can delete it themself, than what is now, where nearly no user understand what frontend cache is.