Title: Content encoding errors with WP Super Cache enabled Last modified: October 6, 2023 --- # Content encoding errors with WP Super Cache enabled * Resolved [dleigh](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dleigh/) * (@dleigh) * [2 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/content-encoding-errors-with-wp-super-cache-enabled/) * Recently I had a problem with some ajax processes not completing correctly. I turned off the Autoptimize and Async Javascript plugins and the problem went away. * HOWEVER, all of the sudden I began to have problems with encoding. In my HTML, I had ASCII control characters like SOH and ETX and all the different browsers complained (Firefox, Edge, Chrome) and made me reload the page. The reload would work but things like non-breaking spaces would show up as visible glyphs, etc. Each new page I tried would have that problem. I tried deleting cache and cookies, etc. but the problem persisted. * The only thing that fixed it was turning off the cache in WP SUPER CACHE. I can’t imagine why that would make a difference. I don’t want to run with caching, but I also need to run error-free. * Any ideas of why that might be happening? * The page I need help with: _[[log in](https://login.wordpress.org/?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fwordpress.org%2Fsupport%2Ftopic%2Fcontent-encoding-errors-with-wp-super-cache-enabled%2F%3Foutput_format%3Dmd&locale=en_US) to see the link]_ Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total) * Plugin Author [Donncha O Caoimh (a11n)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/donncha/) * (@donncha) * [2 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/content-encoding-errors-with-wp-super-cache-enabled/#post-17113254) * Are you using expert caching? If you are, enable the “Remove UTF8/blog charset support from .htaccess file” setting. * That may help. If you are using expert caching, then try simple caching. In most cases it’s almost as fast, and a lot less hassle if something has gone wrong. * Thread Starter [dleigh](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dleigh/) * (@dleigh) * [2 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/content-encoding-errors-with-wp-super-cache-enabled/#post-17118257) * Thanks for the response! * Unfortunately, neither of those worked. Because of the ASCII control characters showing up, I also have to refresh every page to get it to load. In Firefox it shows a “Content Encoding” error and the others just give a blank white screen until I refresh. * If I turn off the cache then it all works fine. * I’ve had WP Super Cache on this site for years now, but this is the first time that this is occurring. - This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by [dleigh](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dleigh/). * Plugin Author [Donncha O Caoimh (a11n)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/donncha/) * (@donncha) * [2 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/content-encoding-errors-with-wp-super-cache-enabled/#post-17118309) * Can you try an older version of WP Super Cache? If you go to the Advanced page at [https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache/advanced/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache/advanced/) you’ll find a form there where you can select older versions. * If this is just happening, try version 1.9.4. I’d be very interested in hearing if the problem happens there. But, I have a feeling the problem isn’t in this plugin but something else as we haven’t changed the headers this plugin sends, or how cached files are stored for a long time. * Can you download the HTML of a cached page and compare it with the HTML of the uncached page at the same URL? Are the headers sent very different. I saw that your page is sending “content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8”. The cached page should send that header too. * Thread Starter [dleigh](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dleigh/) * (@dleigh) * [2 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/content-encoding-errors-with-wp-super-cache-enabled/#post-17118925) * Hi, * Thanks for taking a look at this. * I tried 1.9.4, 1.9.3 and 1.9.2 but it did not change. Page “broken” when cached but not when uncached. The cached version is with simple caching. * I’m attaching some images of a compare between the cached and un-cached version of the same page. The content-type setting is the same. * ![](https://i0.wp.com/david.leighweb.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/10/2023- 10-12-12_26_06-.png?ssl=1) * ![](https://i0.wp.com/david.leighweb.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/10/2023- 10-12-12_26_20-Boutique-Reseau-Mathurin-Cordier-%E2%80%94-Mozilla-Firefox-Private- Browsing.png?ssl=1) * ![](https://i0.wp.com/david.leighweb.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/10/2023- 10-12-12_26_40-.png?ssl=1) * ![](https://i0.wp.com/david.leighweb.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/10/2023- 10-12-12_26_56-.png?ssl=1) * Plugin Author [Donncha O Caoimh (a11n)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/donncha/) * (@donncha) * [2 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/content-encoding-errors-with-wp-super-cache-enabled/#post-17120868) * Do you have “Cache HTTP headers with page content” enabled? Disable it, just in case. Maybe uninstall the plugin completely and install it again. Includes removing the configuration. * Otherwise, it may well be another plugin that’s doing something. Can you disable other plugins on your site one by one to test? * Plugin Support [Tamirat B. (a11n)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tamirat22/) * (@tamirat22) * [2 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/content-encoding-errors-with-wp-super-cache-enabled/#post-17141489) * Hello! * It’s been one week since this topic was last updated. I’m going to mark this thread as solved. If you have any further questions or need more help, you’re welcome to open another thread here. Cheers! * Thread Starter [dleigh](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dleigh/) * (@dleigh) * [2 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/content-encoding-errors-with-wp-super-cache-enabled/#post-17173164) * Just ended up switching to W3 Total Cache and OpCache Manager. No problems. Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total) The topic ‘Content encoding errors with WP Super Cache enabled’ is closed to new replies. * ![](https://ps.w.org/wp-super-cache/assets/icon-256x256.png?rev=3506220) * [WP Super Cache](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache/) * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache/#faq) * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-super-cache/) * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-super-cache/active/) * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-super-cache/unresolved/) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-super-cache/reviews/) ## Tags * [ascii](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/ascii/) * [cache](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/cache/) * [encoding](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/encoding/) * 7 replies * 3 participants * Last reply from: [dleigh](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dleigh/) * Last activity: [2 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/content-encoding-errors-with-wp-super-cache-enabled/#post-17173164) * Status: resolved