Hi @14beesnaveed
I hope you’re well today!
Browser caching is actually a matter of specific HTTP headers set by webserver (as in e.g. Apache or nginx) for responses to the requests made by browser. Then based on these headers, it’s browser that decides whether to store particular asset in local cache.
Hummingbird only helps you configure if/how those HTTP headers are set by webserver but it doesn’t have any direct access to cache in browser.
Pretty much the only ways to “force” browser cache to refresh are to change the name of a given asset (e.g. CSS file) or – which is a common practice – to append a unique query var to the URL. Usually it’s the ?ver=123 sting (with different numbers). Common way to “break” browser cache is to just change that number upon each and every change of the given file.
This is, however, something that the script that generates and enqueues such file (e.g. CSS) in WordPress should do. Hummingbird only deal with settings that control webserver settings but that’s it (in context of browser caching).
However, there are two settings in Hummingbird that may be relevant to the case despite that:
1. on “Humminbgird -> Advanced Tools -> General” page see if “Remove query strings from my assets” option is enabled; if yes – try disabling it;
This is directly related to what I described above. Hummingbird can be set to remove such “unique query string” from asset (JS/CSS) URLs and that could cause browser cache not to be refreshed; it can be performance booster in case of more “static” sites and/or sites with assets that don’t change often but in case of using page builders such as Elementor and similar, it can affect browser caching
2. if you also have “Page Caching” enabled in Hummingbird, then on “Hummingbird -> Caching -> Settings” page make sure that “File Change Detection” is set to “Automatic”.
If those changes doesn’t help, then you may indeed need to “force” browsers to refresh their local cache from time to time (after changes are made to site). This can be done using this free plugin
https://ww.wp.xz.cn/plugins/prevent-browser-caching/
Note please: it’s not recommended to keep it set to work continuously (there’s option on when it should “refresh” assets in its settings) as it would completely stop browser caching; best would be to just use its “manual” option whenever necessary.
Kind regard,
Adam
