For most scenarios, just refreshing the web page should give you the latest version. However, sometimes, browsers interfere and don't pull the latest update.
This article explains how to make sure that you are running the latest version of Foodzilla.
How do I know which version I have?
Click on your name at the top bar to open the user menu, which looks like this:
You will see a few options and at the bottom, there is the version number that you're currently running and when it was last updated. We usually update our software every 2 weeks so if the "Last Updated" date is older than that, then you're likely running an older version.
How do I force the browser to download the latest version?
So in order to force the browser to download the latest version of the web application you're trying to visit, you need to "reset" or "delete" the cache in your browser.
Here are links for different browsers on how to remove the browser's cache to guarantee that you get the latest version:
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For Safari on iPhone/iPad: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201265
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For Chrome on Android: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/32050?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&sjid=5573452902854735975-AP&oco=1
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For Chrome on Desktop: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/32050?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&sjid=5573452902854735975-AP
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For Chrome on iPhone/iPad: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/32050?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DiOS&sjid=5573452902854735975-AP&oco=1
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For Microsoft Edge: https://clear-my-cache.com/windows/microsoft-edge.html
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For Firefox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-clear-firefox-cache
There are a few more ways to do this:
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Hold SHIFT and click on the reload button in your browser (do this for every page).
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Hold CTRL + SHIFT and press R (for Windows/PC) and CMD + SHIFT + R (for Mac)
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Right-click on the browser refresh icon and choose "Empty Cache and Hard Reload"
Why do you need to force an update?
Foodzilla Platform is a web application that can be accessed from any web browser such as Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Firefox. Web applications (such as ours) that are updated frequently suffer from "stale" versioning issues that happen because of the web browser's caching feature. A stale version is essentially an older version of the web application that your browser has decided to serve to you.
What is caching?
Web browsers use a technique called caching to save the user's internet bandwidth from downloading web applications all the time. The browser tries to intelligently decide if the version of the web application you're trying to visit should be updated or not. Sometimes browsers get this wrong and the user ends up using an older version of the web application (which may contain bugs or issues resolved in the newer versions) a.k.a. a browser cache issue.
We implement our own cache-busting techniques to force the browser to download the latest version but this also sometimes fails and requires manual user intervention. Cache invalidation is one of the hardest problems in computer science.