Forum

[aattalie]

Is there a control where we can update the site cache or have the cache cycled faster?  When replacing/updating images it could take up to 5 minutes for the updated image to appear on the page.  The only way to quickly check is to either clear the browser cache or view the page incognito mode.

[kensnyder · Accepted solution]

Our default configuration for Cloudfront CDN is to cache content for 5 minutes.  We found this to be the optimal setting for our CDN configurations to balance refreshing content with performance of the site.  If the desire is to confirm the changes have been applied, we configure the CDNs with a bypass URL that is used as the origin for the CDN and which does not go through Cloudfront, therefore does not cache the content.  You can open a support ticket to get your particular bypass url for testing.

There are also well documented cache busting options for items like css files where you want to update them quickly.  For these you can version them with a querystring to refresh the content after an update for an immediate refresh.  You will want to limit this to a one time update as opposed to a random value, which would essentially bypass the CDN every time, and minimize the effectiveness of the CDN.