How do I disable tomcat caching? I'm having weird static file problems

Question

How do I prevent tomcat from caching? I have css and basic html files that I load and use via ajax, and unless I restart tomcat, the changes do not seem to reflect. Different machines, different browsers, and I don't receive the updated files.

Thoughts?

score 21 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 14 '15 at 11:06

21

You might have to delete the application cache folder in /work/Catalina/localhost after changing the cachingAllowed flag.

Configuration can be introduced in server.xml as

<Context className="org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext"
                 cachingAllowed="false"
                 charsetMapperClass="org.apache.catalina.util.CharsetMapper"
                 cookies="true" 
                 reloadable="false" 
                 wrapperClass="org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper">
        </Context>

edited Jan 14 '15 at 11:06

HopelessN00b

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answered Jul 14 '09 at 00:57

Adam Brand

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+1 I completely forgot to mention that in my original answer. Thanks! – KPWINC Jul 14 '09 at 01:17
Awesome. Works. – Stefan Kendall Jul 14 '09 at 17:19
2

LOL... where's the love? – KPWINC Jul 14 '09 at 21:48
4

Where do i change the `chachingAllowed` tag? – kajacx Feb 13 '14 at 12:28
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Got a warning from Tomcat 8 when starting: Setting property `cachingAllowed` to `false` did not find a matching property. – naXa stands with Ukraine Sep 28 '15 at 10:49
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This answer is now super out-of-date, for anyone reading, and is no longer really correct (for Tomcat 5+) – Alkanshel Aug 23 '16 at 23:46

naXa stands with Ukraine · Answer 2 · 2018-02-19T11:01:09.917

17

For Tomcat 8 / Tomcat 9 properties should be added in conf/context.xml as follows

<Context>
  <Resources antiResourceLocking="false" cachingAllowed="false" />
  ...
</Context>

You might have to delete the application cache folder in /work/Catalina/localhost after changing the cachingAllowed flag. Also clear the cache of IntelliJ IDEA (if you use it to run Tomcat):

Mac:     /Users/{:user}/Library/Caches/IntelliJIdea{:version}/tomcat/  
Linux:   /home/{:user}/.IntelliJIdea{:version}/system/tomcat/
Windows: C:\Users\{:user}\.IntelliJIdea{:version}\system\tomcat\

See Apache Tomcat 9 Configuration Reference for other parameters.

edited Feb 19 '18 at 11:01

answered Mar 29 '16 at 14:22

naXa stands with Ukraine

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antiResourceLocking on -Tag is definitively wrong for tomcat 8 – pscheit Apr 01 '16 at 12:13
This isn't correct for tomcat 7, either. "Setting property 'antiResourceLocking' to 'false' did not find a matching property." ... "Setting property 'cachingAllowed' to 'false' did not find a matching property." – Alkanshel Aug 23 '16 at 23:24
@Amalgovinus for Tomcat 7 see [Zalumon's answer](http://serverfault.com/a/451736/313654). – naXa stands with Ukraine Sep 22 '16 at 15:05
@Amalgovinus did you resolve your issue? I have same problem in tomcat7, what did you do? – Aaron Feb 27 '17 at 11:29
I never got the property to work.. but I'm pretty sure my cache was an unrelated deployment issue :( user error – Alkanshel Feb 27 '17 at 17:39

score 13 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 24 '12 at 10:41

13

I had this problem in Tomcat 7 and the reason was that I had antiResourceLocking set to true (it sounded like a good idea...).

According to the docs ( http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/config/context.html ):

Please note that setting this to true has some side effects, including the disabling of JSP reloading in a running server: see Bugzilla 37668.

In my case it even caused plain static text files to be cached.

So, in summary, at least for rapid development I had to use:

antiResourceLocking="false"
cachingAllowed="false"

answered Nov 24 '12 at 10:41

Reto Höhener

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Where do I add this exactly? If I put in conf/context.xml it gives me "did not find a matching property" for each of them... – Aaron Feb 27 '17 at 11:35
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As attributes of the context element. – Reto Höhener Feb 28 '17 at 17:09

score 4 · Answer 4 · edited Feb 19 '18 at 13:20

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Have you checked this documentation: Apache Tomcat Configuration Reference ?

cacheMaxSize -- Maximum size of the static resource cache in kilobytes. If not specified, the default value is 10240 (10 megabytes).

cacheTTL -- Amount of time in milliseconds between cache entries revalidation. If not specified, the default value is 5000 (5 seconds).

cachingAllowed -- If the value of this flag is true, the cache for static resources will be used. If not specified, the default value of the flag is true.

These parameters are the same for Tomcat 5.5 and Tomcat 6.0.

edited Feb 19 '18 at 13:20

chicks

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answered Jul 14 '09 at 00:49

KPWINC

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I set cachingAllowed to false and cacheTTL to 1000 in my appcontext.xml, and I STILL can't get file not to cache. Worse yet, it's caching across tomcat restarts. – Stefan Kendall Jul 14 '09 at 13:49
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Then it's gotta be from browser cache – lisak Apr 07 '11 at 15:44

How do I disable tomcat caching? I'm having weird static file problems

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