Troubleshoot firewall caching for Square Online sites
Getting customer complaints about your online store can be stressful. If you’re using a firewall in conjunction with your Square Online site and your customers complain about seeing out-of-date content, then your firewall may be misconfigured.
Note: because firewalls come in different forms and are provided by many vendors, this help article provides general guidance, but does not include specific instructions for diagnosing and configuring your specific firewall. Be sure to discuss caching behaviours with your firewall administrator.
Before you begin
Confirm you’re using a firewall in conjunction with your Square Online site.
Connect with your firewall administrator to obtain the firewall caching configuration.
About firewalls
You can opt to use a firewall to improve the performance of your website; however, caching behaviour must be considered when using a firewall.
Much like a browser cache, which stores user data to make future browsing sessions faster, a firewall can also cache web content. In such cases, a firewall can be configured to always store web content, which is useful for static websites (like a website where the content doesn’t change). However, your Square Online site is a dynamic site, and as a result, uses HTTP cache headers to indicate which content can be cached.
Troubleshooting steps
To start the troubleshooting process, keep these suggestions in mind when planning the configuration change:
Perform the change operation after business hours or during an off-peak season.
Test your Square Online site with multiple browsers and devices to ensure the site is operating normally.
Once ready, follow these general guidelines:
After you’ve obtained your firewall configuration, look for a section that refers to ‘cache options’ or ‘caching options’ in your firewall account.
Select the caching option which respects HTTP caching headers. This option may also be referred to as ‘standard caching’. Note: avoid the ‘cache everything’ option.
Work with your firewall administrator to make the configuration change.