SID-00735: VarCache not caching or printing text

Status:	Answered	TWiki version:	4.3.2	Perl version:	5.10.0
Category:	VarCachePlugin	Server OS:	SuSE 11, 2.6.27.19-5-pae	Last update:	16 years ago

I recently installed VarCachePlugin and I can't get it working on any of our pages or a copy of the Test page. The plugin does run and I see the before and afterCommonTagsHandler lines in the debug.txt file. But the search vars are not getting cache and the plugin writes no text to the page.

I noticed that the plugin rev that I installed (Dakar, $Rev: 15683) is way different from what's on twiki.org (Dakar, 8154).

Does anyone know if the version posted to the plugin page actually works? If not, is there a way to get the older version to try?

Thanks.

-- NickThorpe - 2010-01-28

Discussion and Answer

What is TWiki.InstalledPlugins on your TWiki telling? You can always try an older version, although I do not think there is an issue with the latest version of the plugin, we have it running on several sites. To access an older version, go to the VarCachePlugin page, click on "manage" of the package, you get a table to access all previous attachment versions.

-- PeterThoeny - 2010-01-29

Also, note that the plugin turns itself off as soon as there is any URL parameter.

-- PeterThoeny - 2010-01-29

Thank you for the reply! InstalledPlugins on my Twiki says VarCachePlugin (Dakar, $Rev: 15683 (12 Dec 2008) $). There are no parameters on the local URLs I'm using.

I tried to get an older version from the VarCachePlugin page, but when I click "manage" it tells me: Action "CHANGE": access not allowed on web. Do I need to change something on my Twiki account to have change access?

-- NickThorpe - 2010-01-29

I added you to the TWikiCommunityGroup, you should have access now.

-- PeterThoeny - 2010-01-29

I just want to check if you understand the spec properly. This plugin does not expand variables in the page, it simply caches the result transparently so that the page loads faster. If you edit a page or view-raw the page you still see the variables. Try a page with a slow search.

If you need to expand variables look into the TWikiTemplates docs.

-- PeterThoeny - 2010-01-29

Thanks, I tried the older version of the plugin, but I still get the same result. We do have some very long SEARCHes that I was trying to cache. The plugin just doesn't appear to be working (the search takes just as long to run).

On the VarCachePluginTest page, the test line, which should say "This topic is now cached (refresh)", just comes back blank on our TWiki. We are not using any URL parameters.

If you have any other ideas on what might cause this I would appreciate it. Otherwise I'll start inserting a bunch of debug lines in the module to try to figure out what's going on.

-- NickThorpe - 2010-02-03

May be an interference with another plugin? To test, disable all non-standard plugins in configure.

Check if the cache file exists and its file permissions. For example if you cache Sandbox.TestPage, you should get at _VarCachePlugin_cache.txt page in that topics attachment directory, e.g. twiki/pub/Sandbox/TestPage/.

-- PeterThoeny - 2010-02-03

It looks like the problem was with NatSkinPlugin. VarCache works with Nat disabled. Changing the plugin load order with VarCachePlugin first (or after SpreadSheet) didn't fix the issue. For now I'm just leaving NatSkinPlugin disabled; I doubt anyone's using that skin anyway.

Thanks for your help.

-- NickThorpe - 2010-02-03

The NatSkinPlugin caused other issues, such as some weird behavior with the SpreadSheetPlugin. Look into the TWikiNetSkin if you need a professional looking skin.

-- PeterThoeny - 2010-02-03

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