X3Photo Gallery Forums

Hi. When I first opened your website, there seemed to be some inconsistencies, but currently I cannot see any actual errors at least. Is the "Galleri" page supposed to be populated by images? I can see it is empty. It is not entirely clear to me what it's "supposed" to look like. Are you saying you also don't see images from the panel?

Anyway, as I have loads of experience diagnosing various X3 issues, I started digging. Did you notice how lightning fast your website pages load? A good thing of course, but I can see your server is using Varnish caching to achieve this:


Varnish cache is a powerful server extension, that may cache various requests (pages, images etc) on the server, so they are output with almost no processing at high speed. The problem though, is that it may be caching page outputs that do not correlate with your actual changes in panel. My guess is 90% sure your issues are related to Varnish cache. If you have panel login for me (private message me), I can take a look around and make some tests.

Likely you have options in your hosting control panel to disable varnish cache, and/or add varnish cache filters.

X3 already has internal page-caching, and although it is not quite as super-effective as Varnish caching, it will still be fast. More importantly, X3's caching mechanism is managed by X3, so it knows when to invalidate cache and recreate pages on-demand. Likely, you are seeing output that are cached by varnish in some way or other.

Yes this can be very frustrating of course. There will always be a logical explanation though.

Just for some further tests and clarification, I tried to load an image with an url parameter ?adfadfsdf just to make sure it was not cached.
http://dalby-photography.com/content/1. ... ?adfadfsdf

No varnish on first load, since it's been loaded first time:


Refresh same image, varnish is caching it:


Varnish caching on images is not a problem, but this shows your varnish cache in action, and how it will cache requests directly on the server. If it does the same for documents (which I don't have any reason to believe it does not), you will be left with page documents (html/json) that may not update after making changes in X3 panel.

I am guessing that Varnish cache will check modification date of a file to see if it has changed. The problem though, is that dalby-photography.com/Galleri/ (or dalby-photography.com/Galleri/index.html) is not an actual physical file or path on your server, but a virtual page output from the X3 application.

Sorry, but did you read my entire previous reply? I took time to write a long post about what I think the problem is, including screenshots and explanations. There is nothing in your response about this, and you have just re-posted that it doesn't work and panel is empty.

I also requested panel login, which would allow me to diagnose further.

For comparison you can look at my develop site that is hosted at another hosting service, but works like it should, its located at a temporary adress www.dalby.skinkelynet.dk 

Yep, but this server is not using Varnish Cache:

kdalby wrote:Yeah i read it... but i cant give you panel access if i cannot open it right?

I can see that you are logged in, but something is not loading correctly. If I can get to there, I can see exactly what is not loading and what the error is there. I am guessing it's related to Varnish Cache.

Some further diagnostics show me that a file is missing:
http://dalby-photography.com/panel/login.php


Any idea why this file is missing? It is of course crucial that ALL X3 application files exist if X3 is to work properly.

kdalby wrote:I get the varnish cache thing and its not selectable from my hosting, i Can only choose Which php version i want to run.

Who is the hosting if I may ask? Would seem a bit unprofessional to blindly enable Varnish Cache without any options to disable it.

Ok, I guess we are solved then  :smiley:

kdalby wrote: Not really... just moved the site, and the same problem appears. Can login but no page menu and same with the front page and the gallery...

Well, either the website is not moved, or by a very odd coincidence, this server also has Varnish Cache:


And panel.


Perhaps the website has not propagated yet. I will try tomorrow. Until Varnish cache is disabled, as I have diagnosed this issue, there is no reason to expect it should work any better.

I hope you understand I am here to help. This isn't X3 just making problems randomly you know. Also, I'm still awaiting your panel login, which I would have thought you could have provided by now if you want me to continue to offer optimal support.

See private message.

Varnish cache is still interfering with panel login and probably page/menu output, and you have corrupted javascript files being output by server.

kdalby wrote:yeah i just exchanged the .js file with the one you referred to. However i could before that login to the panel, and its not empty any more. i can manage the site, but still no luck with the menu working.

Yes, but having multiple issues make it even harder to diagnose. Now if the javascript is fixed, I could try again and see what the next problem is. However, I can longer find any X3 website at www.dalby-photography.com ... It just says forbidden, and panel is not there.

kdalby wrote:Strange thing is, that the varnish cache should not be a problem anymore since i moved to another hosting, on which the site works fine with the other adress.

www.dalby.skinkelynet.dk and www.dalby-photography.com are now both hosted on unoeuro.com and one site is working, the other is not. so i suspect that its about my migration to the other site and back, so maybe i should try and start all over again.

Not so strange really, as one website had varnish cache and the other not. In regards to www.dalby.skinkelynet.dk, there is no Varnish Cache, as you can see in the output headers:


If they are hosted on the same service and one has Varnish Cache applied and the other not, this is either a setting in your hosting control panel, or some misconfiguration from your server host. Currently I cannot test, since the dalby-photography.com X3 website cannot be found.

Basically, if you can show me dalby-photography.com without varnish cache, I believe you have a working X3 website.