Self Help Step One: Clear your cache and delete your cookies
If you have trouble loading the site, Step Zero in troubleshooting is to make sure your device meets our minimum system requirements. Once you confirm that we do support your device, Step One in troubleshooting is to clear your cache and delete your cookies. These steps sound technical, but they are less difficult than you might think, and we offer some detailed guidance below. Taking these steps can address a wide array of problems, often eliminating the need to create an individual ticket at the Help Desk.
Short answer, if you're in a hurry
- Check out this helpful site, https://www.whatismybrowser.com while you are using the browser on which you're having problems.
Look up your browser on it and then search for instructions to clear your cache and delete your cookies.
NOTE: It's a good idea to find the instructions for a single-site cache-clear and cookie-deletion. You can go global if you prefer, but the single-site option when available is often less trouble in the end. Notably, the single-site clear leaves all your stored data for other sites untouched, which means you will start afresh (including needing to login if you're a site member) only for Daily Kos.
- Follow the instructions.
- Refresh your page for Daily Kos.
- If the cache-clear and cookie-deletion did not do the job, then please read Self Help Step Two: Addressing browser extension conflicts
Long answer, if you have time for more details
- Why it helps to clear cache and delete cookies
If you are a regular, steady reader of Daily Kos then standard data that our site stores on your browser (within a "cache") can accumulate quickly, especially on a mobile device. Sooner than you might expect, your browser cache might either become too full OR it might store some old, obsolete data. An old or stale cache can cause problems ranging from poor site loading to lapses in site performance. Similarly, the information that helps us know details like your login status and user preferences ("cookies") can become corrupted.
Consequently, clearing cache and deleting cookies are the first suggestions we usually make in replying to a Help Desk ticket. If you take these steps first, you will be ahead of the game if you can indicate in your ticket that you have already done so without satisfactory results.
- What you need to know to take these steps
If you don't know a cache from a cave and are not familiar with any of the process, we suggest you check out this helpful site, https://www.whatismybrowser.com It will fulfill its promise as soon as you load the page, by immediately identifying your browser and giving you lots of details about it. In addition, the website provides good, clear, browser-specific instructions (with screenshots) about how to clear a browser cache and delete cookies, among other tips. Even better, it offers browser-specific instructions about doing a single-site cache-clear and cookie-deletion. Following that step-by-step process will allow you to limit the impact of your cache-clearing and cookie-deletion to our site--an approach that we realize many users would prefer.
Deleting cookies has a different impact than clearing a cache--for one thing, it will log you out on that particular browser--but it is a routine part of browser maintenance, and it also helps ensure a fresh start when attempting to diagnose and remedy a problem. A forced logout can also help resolve login problems that can occur from time to time.
After you take the steps of clearing your cache and deleting your cookies, we suggest reinforcing the results by closing the tab for our site and reloading it afresh. Check out the site's behavior then. If all is well, that's the best possible outcome, and you should be able to proceed without incident.
Self Help Step Two: What to do next if this step did not do the trick
If the site is still not loading properly, however, you have one other self-serve remedy to explore. The next troubleshooting step is to check for extension conflicts. The linked resource, "Self Help Step Two: Addressing browser extension conflicts," explains that process in detail.