Opening information not updating

@rflewelling I am unsure without some more details.

Have you tried clearing the cache and checking that this resolves the issue (from the old settings to the new).

Also, please ensure the time zone is set correctly.

Can you share a screen shot or URL?

yes, I flushed the cache in the plugin and also on my site.

how should I share the screenshots?

the current URL is gepl.org, but I have removed the condition for when we are closed. now, to try to avoid the problem, I only display today’s hours. I am waiting to see whether it updates to Tuesday at midnight.

the shortcode I was using was

[open_text]%if_open% Open today %space% %hours_today% %end% %if_closed% Currently closed %end% [/open_text]

Thanks @rflewelling.

I cannot see the replacement text in play on your website.

Just to check, the time zone is set correctly (so that it matches your main time zone city)?

To assist with identifying the problem, please can you use the following shortcode and content:

[open_text]%now%[/open_text]

Also, the %space% replacement text is probably not needed here.

Screenshots – that’s tricky because the forum only allows links. I can recommend either being specific with the URLs (and where to look in the page) or search for online screen shot service or similar so you can post a link to this.

@rflewelling After checking your website, I recommend setting your time zone in Dashboard → Settings → General to America/Chicago. Please let me know if this helps?

The time zone setting is already correct. I think that there is a syntax problem with the if_closed logic. Can you confirm that the code below is valid?

[open_text]%if_open% Open %today% %hours_today% %end% %if_closed% Currently closed %end%[/open_text]

It also seems that it behaves differently on the Home page than on the other pages.

This screenshot shows that on Saturday, 9/19 at 3:01, the plugin says Open today 10 am – 6 pm. The hours for Saturday were set at 2 pm – 6 pm.

How do you avoid issues with caching? The hours that the plugin is displaying in the screen shot are Friday’s hours.

https://gepl.org/gepl-v2/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/image.png

@rflewelling The shortcode and its content seem to be perfectly fine.

May I recommend using this service to test your HTML output?

• W3 Validator

Also, if you’re using a CDN, then you may receive old versions of the page. I recommend not using a CDN for your website as it is very much a local entity and not frequented in other countries (this is where CDNs help). Also, heavy caching will affect the page – showing older data, though it usually isn’t an entire day out. Are you able to set the cache to be no more than an hour old (just as a suggestion)?

@rflewelling Did you try adding this shortcode and replacement text?

[open_text]%now%[/open_text]

It will show the current/cached time.

Here is an example where on the home page, it currently says closed, but other pages are correct. I inserted the “now” after the condition to show the issue. Even the “now” is not correct.

https://15.223.140.226

@rflewelling This is pointing heavily in the direction of the page caching. Older versions of the page are stored that may have the wrong open or closed status. The %now% replacement code is showing the timestamp of the page’s snapshot.

I recommend changing the settings of your caching service to update more frequently – say at least once an hour.

I’m considering new functionality to refresh data using an AJAX request so it will check for the current status on the page load – then display content based on the current server time and not the snapshot of the page. However, this is not a comprehensive solution and I need to consider it carefully as most users will not need or need want the additional requests.

Please let me know if the caching service can be tweaked as suggested and if this resolves your issue?

@rflewelling I have checked your setup again and the out-dated page problem is caused by the caching service: WP Fastest Cache. The cache timeout needs to be reduced to hourly or set to match the change of your opening hours.

I am trying find a specific solution for you, but their support around this is pretty vague.

As this is caused by another plugin’s setup, I am marking this as resolved.

@rflewelling I’ve added a new parameter value to (hopefully) circumvent the out-date page issue…

[review_rating update="immediate"]

Just download the latest version of the plugin.