Let’s say you’re a web developer and you’re working on making DNS changes to your website. Maybe you’re moving your website from one hosting facility to another. You go onto Network Solutions or GoDaddy or whoever you’re using to handle your DNS. You delete out the old IP address and put in the new one. You let it cycle around.
You go back into Google Chrome to check out the new site.
CHROME STILL SHOWS THE OLD SITE.
You pull out your hair. Double-check the new server. Double-check your DNS settings. It’s as if absolute anarchy has occurred.
IT IS GOOGLE CHROME’S FAULT.
Chrome is absolutely insane. They have a BUILT IN DNS CACHE meaning even if you make changes in all the right places, Chrome will still show the old bad value. If you’re troubleshooting you can easily waste hours trying to figure out what is wrong, when it’s Chrome that is wrong. This “feature” just caused you no end of trouble.
And it also means that all your end users who are using Chrome will run into the same issue. Even though you’ve moved your site to a new location, and that new location is running fine, any of your users who are using Chrome will still point to the OLD SITE due to their browser’s built-in DNS cache.
Yes, really. The browser is overriding your actual hosting facility settings.
For you as the developer to clear YOUR copy of Google Chrome’s cache, open up Google Chrome. Then type in, as the URL:
chrome://net-internals/#dns
That will bring up a page with a button that says “Clear host cache”. Click that button. Close down all copies of Chrome. Then open a fresh one. It should now be working properly.
However, that only fixes YOUR copy of Chrome. All your end users out there in world are still having the same problem. You just have to wait it out until their browsers naturally clear that cache over time.
It means a site rollover change isn’t necessarily quick. It can take days.
Good luck.
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