Circle Keeps spinning

Hi @seanjester,
Glad you reached out. There are a couple reasons why this can happen, so I’ll need a little more context to get started.

First, send along your system information. You can do this by navigating to Donations > Tools > System Info (tab) and clicking the button to “Get System Report” and copy/paste that into your reply here.

At the moment I’m suspecting a possible caching issue, so I’m including instructions for that here in case they end up being helpful. Again, I won’t be sure without some additional context, but I’d rather give you a little too much information than not enough!

The fix here is a bit technical, so I’ll include as much detail as possible, but you may need to reach out to your web developer or web support person to implement the recommendations I’ll be talking about below.

If you’re not familiar with caching, it’s a method of saving server resources by storing copies of a page or site, so that the next visitor’s visit doesn’t trigger a call to the server at all, they just get the copy that was saved.

We put together this deep dive into what caching is and how it can cause problems: https://givewp.com/documentation/resources/caching/

Caching works really well for speeding up sites, but when a saved copy of the site has sensitive information in it (like donor info) it’s important that GiveWP not share that with the next visitor. If GiveWP is not convinced that the browser requesting the data is the correct one, it defaults to not showing the data.

Caching is handled differently on various sites and web hosts. This could mean a caching plugin, or caching could be in a security solution. Hosting providers also have settings for caching at the server level, and they can help make adjustments for you there. Most caching solutions have a setting or section for excluding specific URLs or parts of URLs (called “slugs”) from caching. At the very least, you should exclude the following slugs from caching:

/donations/
/donation-confirmation/
/donation-failed/
/donor-dashboard/
*any page with a donation form on it

Also, the following query strings (if your caching solution has a setting for them):
give-embed=donor-dashboard
giveDonationFormInIframe=1

Your host or the caching plugin/solution you are using can help with that. Some of them may require what’s called a “wildcard” like /donations/* to capture all subdirectories under the /donations/ folder.

Some folks prefer to customize the URLs to their site pages, so you may find that your URLs don’t have the slugs mentioned above, even though they contain the same content. In cases like those, we recommend whitelisting the page, not just the slug, that way the pages with those essential pieces of information are still excluded from caching. This is especially important for URLs of pages with donation forms on them.

One helpful tip: Check in with your hosting provider. Most hosts have caching at the server level, and they will be able to adjust this for you. You can also temporarily disable caching on the site to confirm that the uncached site isn’t showing the problem.

I’d also like to make sure something isn’t causing trouble with the PHP sessions on your site (a clue here is that you can’t replicate while other donors can). GiveWP uses PHP sessions to ensure that donors only have access to their own donation data (among other things). We have a detailed document that explains what a PHP session is, and how you can troubleshoot broken sessions: https://givewp.com/documentation/core/frequent-troubleshooting-issues/understanding-troubleshooting-user-access/

The number one thing that causes sessions to mess up is caching, which is another reason I’ve included that information above. Excluding those slugs I listed above will help with this as well.

Once you excluded those slugs, clear your browser’s cache and access the donation form again.

While fine-tuning cache falls outside the scope of the support we’re able to provide, your success with online donations is our number one priority, and we’re happy to provide any tips.

I know this was quite a bit of information to share. If you have any questions about this let me know, I’m happy to help.