Some fonts screwed up in Google Chrome, but other browsers OK

Random elements of text all too often display as totally different from that designed in Google Chrome when pages are first uploaded.
Strangely, the distortion is not apparent in Edge or Firefox and even the Chrome problems are inclined to disappear in the following days.
This means I cannot trust my websites to show as designed.
I am running latest versions of Win 10 and Google Chrome on a Surface 4 Pro with Xara Web Designer Premium 15.1.0.53605
I have not updated to the latest version as I am in two minds whether to swap to another provider.
Any ideas?
The latest cock up is at http://www.looelifeboats.co.uk/donate.html which should show as below, with the screwed up image alongside.
Note that 2 of the 3 captions are incorrect, yet they all have the same font.

Attachment 124062
Attachment 124063

Does this occur just after you publish the site after editing and whatnot?

I find Chrome an absolute pain when it comes to holding on to it's cache. Refreshing usually doesn't do the job and I have go into settings and clear it manually.

Thank you Chris M.
Clearing the cache has fixed this problem, so it appears I am the only one seeing the errors, which is a great relief.

I have been having the same issues. I develop websites for many clients and after an update I often hear about how they can’t see the updates and/or the website is all messed up. [a lot like the screenshots above] Which tells me it’s not just my cache but theirs as well, and probably any other person who visits the website.

I so confused… Is this a Web Designer” issue or GoDaddy or global issue?

I have also tried refreshing, hard reset, reloading the page, clearing cache in settings and sometimes it works, but most of the time it doesn’t. I have 4 browsers on my computer and they all show the same mixed up results, so I was leaning towards it being a server cache issue, instead of the browser cache issue. I emailed my service provider asking questions, but did not receive a reply back from them.

Usually it resolves its self after several hours to 24 hours, but this isn’t a solution when clients are questioning you about why their website is a mess. One even yelled at me and I had no answers to give him except to wait it out to let it take care of itself. He didn’t like that answer too much and I didn’t blame him either.

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Originally Posted by marjorie

I have been having the same issues. I develop websites for many clients and after an update I often hear about how they can’t see the updates and/or the website is all messed up. [a lot like the screenshots above] Which tells me it’s not just my cache but theirs as well, and probably any other person who visits the website.

I so confused… Is this a Web Designer” issue or GoDaddy or global issue?

I have also tried refreshing, hard reset, reloading the page, clearing cache in settings and sometimes it works, but most of the time it doesn’t. I have 4 browsers on my computer and they all show the same mixed up results, so I was leaning towards it being a server cache issue, instead of the browser cache issue. I emailed my service provider asking questions, but did not receive a reply back from them.

Usually it resolves its self after several hours to 24 hours, but this isn’t a solution when clients are questioning you about why their website is a mess. One even yelled at me and I had no answers to give him except to wait it out to let it take care of itself. He didn’t like that answer too much and I didn’t blame him either.

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Change (non-)service provider. With mine I can purge the server caching immediately.

Acorn

Where would I find the option to purge my server caching?

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Originally Posted by marjorie

Where would I find the option to purge my server caching?

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If you are with GoDaddy then I am sure there are Help pages for it...

The only other suggestion would be to publish twice.
The first time with

Code:

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<meta http-equiv="Cache-Control"content="no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate"/>
<meta http-equiv="Pragma"content="no-cache"/>
<meta http-equiv="Expires"content="0"/>

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added to Utilities > Web Properties > Website > HTML Code (head).
This ought to ensure the current server pages are fetched regardless of browser or server caching.

After a suitable period (when the client nods sagely, republish with the META labels removed.

Acorn

I followed your instructions, but unfortunately, this hasn't worked either.
Do you think it has anything to do with my free SSL account with Cloudflare?
Or can you think of any other things I can try?
I even tried uploading the website the slow way. Share--> Publish--> Settings: Fast Publish (Only changed files).
I'm also wondering if website visitors are seeing the website all messed up just like I am?
I used www.GeoPeeker.com to check, and it looks like they are. :(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by marjorie

I followed your instructions, but unfortunately, this hasn't worked either.
Do you think it has anything to do with my free SSL account with Cloudflare?
Or can you think of any other things I can try?
I even tried uploading the website the slow way. Share--> Publish--> Settings: Fast Publish (Only changed files).
I'm also wondering if website visitors are seeing the website all messed up just like I am?
I used www.GeoPeeker.com to check, and it looks like they are. :(

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I use a free SSL certificate and Clourflare and have no problems.

We need a link to your site.
"all messed up" is more likely publishing to the wrong place.
Acorn

I have over 30 client websites, so I don't think they are going to the wrong place. Each client has their own GoDaddy account and hosting.

I'd be happy to show you what's happening, but it only shows up for about 4 to 12/24 hours after an update has been done, and right now I don't have any websites doing this at this time. However, it looks a lot like the screenshots above. I will be sure to post a website link when this happens again to confirm. I will do anything I can for a client, but when this issue comes up it's so embarrassing that I can't fix it for them in a timely matter.

Last night I went into my file manager and deleted a page that was causing problems and then uploaded the website again and it still didn't fix it.
Come to think about it, one of my clients does not have CloudFlare SSL and it happens on their website as well. I thought for sure that was the problem, but I guess not. I use the default CloudFlare settings, and there are also cache settings, but I leave them as is. Here's a link, but I'm not sure if you can use it since I am logged into my account. https://dash.cloudflare.com/4d27c1ac...ds.com/caching.

I was doing some experimenting last night with one of my own websites, and one page is currently showing very mild signs of this here... http://www.madaboutmolds.com/Casting...structions.htm
On desktop it's showing no bold text and yesterday it was the wrong font. On mobile, it looks fine today, but that isn't always the case. It will probably fix its self soon, and usually it's much worse than this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by marjorie

I have over 30 client websites, so I don't think they are going to the wrong place. Each client has their own GoDaddy account and hosting.

I'd be happy to show you what's happening, but it only shows up for about 4 to 12/24 hours after an update has been done, and right now I don't have any websites doing this at this time. However, it looks a lot like the screenshots above. I will be sure to post a website link when this happens again to confirm. I will do anything I can for a client, but when this issue comes up it's so embarrassing that I can't fix it for them in a timely matter.

Last night I went into my file manager and deleted a page that was causing problems and then uploaded the website again and it still didn't fix it.
Come to think about it, one of my clients does not have CloudFlare SSL and it happens on their website as well. I thought for sure that was the problem, but I guess not. I use the default CloudFlare settings, and there are also cache settings, but I leave them as is. Here's a link, but I'm not sure if you can use it since I am logged into my account. https://dash.cloudflare.com/4d27c1ac...ds.com/caching.

I was doing some experimenting last night with one of my own websites, and one page is currently showing very mild signs of this here... http://www.madaboutmolds.com/Casting...structions.htm
On desktop it's showing no bold text and yesterday it was the wrong font. On mobile, it looks fine today, but that isn't always the case. It will probably fix its self soon, and usually it's much worse than this.

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Thank you for sharing. If it self-rectifies then I can only be server caching. It is something you need to tackle with GoDaddy.

Acorn

Interesting. I contacted GoDaddy this morning and they say it's the cache setting /or code in the WD program. [which I do not see or have]
GoDaddy says I do not have caching in my Delux Hosting service so there's nothing to clear or configure.
I checked to see if my router has a cache file, but it doesn't look like it and even if it did I'm not sure how that would help on my client's end.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by marjorie

Interesting. I contacted GoDaddy this morning and they say it's the cache setting /or code in the WD program. [which I do not see or have]
GoDaddy says I do not have caching in my Delux Hosting service so there's nothing to clear or configure.
I checked to see if my router has a cache file, but it doesn't look like it and even if it did I'm not sure how that would help on my client's end.

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Very frustrating.

How can XWDP have caching when it only generates static sites consisting of HTML, CSS, JS and images that you upload to add, delete or overwrite previous file versions?

Try without Xara Fast Publish.

Alternatively, switch to an FTP program.
I do this and Export locally and check the changes are correct (purging browser cache).
I usually use Filezilla to overwrite but occasionally I delete the entire web space and reload everything.
Even with such abuse, my sites accept it all even with Cloudflare active, though I do force a purge of my server caching when I remember.

Acorn

Well, this is ridiculous. Now I'm really confused. I have FileZilla as well, so I gave it a shot. It worked, but wait there's more. I was so surprised that I made some more edits and did a new update to the website and then it stopped working. So I'm guessing the timing for the cache to clear out was just right?? The new files in the file manager have the current date and time, so I know they uploaded correctly. I even updated my FileZilla program, but that didn't change anything either.
I just checked and I am using the latest version of WD Premium.

I just did another test. I did the same as above, except this time instead of using FileZilla I dropped the updated files straight into GoDaddy's file manager. It worked, but again it only worked the first time.
I'm running out of ideas here, and I sure do appreciate the help I've gotten so far. I don't give up easily. :)

Hi Marjorie. Hate it when thing like this happen. Do you have a second hosting account with anyone? i.e. The Magix hosting account you get for free for 12 months after purchasing a Xara product? Or any other non GoDaddy hosting? If so do you experience the same issues when publishing there? If not perhaps you could send one of us your xar/web file such that we could upload it on our server as a test?

Hello, Thank you for your help with this issue. I've had problems with this for as long as I can remember, and clients are not always very patient*with these types of issues happening on their websites.

The main problems that I can see are the*font types, font color, font size, bold, italic, links such as PDF file updates, navigation bars, and animations. I do not think it affects photos, and it's usually only the pages on the website that have been updated which are causing these issues.**

When I do your suggestion it says my folder is locked or something. I wasn't able to upload it to my Magix account. :(

When I export the website to a folder on my desktop and open a page file from this folder I do not see issues. However, If I change the page content and export again over-writing the previous files and then open again, it shows the first export as if I hadn't exported a second time at all.*

Maybe it's an over-writing issue? I have no idea. The more I troubleshoot the more confused I get.

Yes, I can send the file to you if you show me where to upload it too, but keep in mind I have over 30 clients and this happens on other websites as well.

Thank you. :)

Hi Marjorie. When you experience this it is very disconcerting - an 'oh no!' moment. However, this is not a hosting issue, or an issue with Xara. After speaking with my hosting provider a few years ago they told me this, and I contacted google to confirm it (took them 3 weeks to respond...). It is the efficiency of your computer and which ever search engine you use (with chrome being the most efficient) embedding websites that you visit often so that they load quicker for you next time you visit the site. From Wikipedia "In computing, a cache is a hardware or software component that stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster; the data stored in a cache might be the result of an earlier computation or a copy of data stored elsewhere." "Stored elsewhere" refers usually to the websites hosting provider and the server they use. You and your client will probably be the only ones seeing the mish mash of fonts not displaying correctly, overlapping, etc. Your clients website visitors possibly will not experience the same problem unless they visit the site with the same regularity that you and your client do. After making changes I ask all my clients to clear their cache 'since the beginning of time', and explain that their clients will not experience the same issues. Keeps them happy, keeps me happy. I use Filezilla, which is suppose to eliminate having to do this by selecting "Overwrite if source is different or newer", but it doesn't eliminate all the problems.

Yes, it is very frustrating. As you know, developing websites takes a lot of work, and when it doesn't look right to a client who's paid a lot of money to have their website developed is even more frustrating.

I just made some updates to my own website and did what you said above with FileZilla [again] and it's still giving me these issues.

Is there any other work-around to confirm my clients that the website does infact look like how it is intended to look to reassure them I'm not lying to them?
Some of them who have information on their website that changes daily are very concerned their customers are seeing the wrong or old information.

I'm not convinced that website visitors are not seeing this mish-mash of unpredictable content. If you test a website page on https://www.geopeeker.com/ I can view what visitors see it's not at all what they should be viewing.

Thanks for your assistance. Getting to the bottom of this is very important.

Marjorie, when you use GeoPeeker, you still need to consider you are using CloudFlare and are dependent on its propagation of new content and server caching, which takes time and could therefore just be showing the delay.

You could create a small update icon (Δ) as a repeating object on all pages with a faint transparency on the page edge with a link of

Quote:

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javascript: window.location.reload(true);

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This would allow you to force a server refresh.

What you could then do is advise which site you have done this too here and we could immediately check and report back if it is visible.
If it is then it is just local browser caching.

If it appears after a time we can let you know.
Finally, as it is now available all subsequent updates would have this mechanism to force a refresh.
Second finally, it might be possible to include this as a one off automatic refresh but there is no point until we know what we are dealing with.

Acorn

I did as you suggested, but it's not refreshing from the server. This is how it's supposed to look.https://letstalk.tinytake.com/tt/Mzg0NDk3OV8xMTc1Njg5MwThis is how it's showing it online.https://letstalk.tinytake.com/tt/Mzg0NDk4NF8xMTc1NjkyOAThis is the website I'm testing these issues on, with a refresh button on the top right side.https://www.madaboutmolds.com/Troubleshooting.htm[of coarse this will correct after the 4 to 24 hours cache refresh it seems to be doing.Do you see anything else I can do to make this work right? Or anything I'm doing wrong? I'll do whatever it takes for this to look good for my Clients.

Attachment 125421

I tested your link in Chrome 78.0.3904.70; if I understand correctly what you are looking to see, this is it. Try a further upload to your host and immediately test your site from another device (not your laptop/PC) and establish whether the same error occurs. This will give you a clue whether it is server-side or client-side.

Maybe post your .XAR test file and members here can confirm that it publishes correctly (and is immediately visible without error), on theirs or a Magic server.

Further thought - some of the known Google font issues are related to the Chrome 2D flag https://coderwall.com/p/9tecwq/fix-p...ome-on-windows.

Check URL=Chrome://flags

Attachment 125422

Try disabling Accelerated 2D Canvas and see if this resolves your browser issue; if not, reset 'Enabled'. I think I read in the threat you have had this problem for a while.

Marjorie, just to confirm the troubleshooting page looked fine on first opening for me.
Could you now make a change to it and upload that change?
That way I will be able to see if the change appears right away or needs the Refresh.

Acorn

Hey thank you so much for the information and additional things to try. Yes this screenshot is the correct view of the site, however when it's displaying wrong www.geopeeker.com is also showing it wrong, so it's not just me seeing it the wrong way. I tried to view from my cell phone, but this website has a mobile version of the website so it doesn't do any good since that's WD mobile variant. I have over 30 client websites I am currently maintaining and it happens on them whether they are created from a blank page or a template.I also tested your idea with the “Turn on ClearType” and also the "Accelerated 2D Canvas" without any solution to this issue. I have a feeling the files are not over-writing the old files correctly, or the cache filkes do not clear out. I don't know, but I have five different browsers all showing the same results, so I do not think it's the browser. Clearing the cache does not help. Just time clears it out. Would my internet provider have any settings to clear out cache? Or CloudFlare for SSL? Another thing that has sometimes helped [but not consistently) is coping the web-page address to a new tab and adding the https/ to the address so it comes directing from the root [or whatever that means] read it on a Google search result and he was sure it helped him with his cache issues.

Yes, I sure can. Try it again now, please.https://www.madaboutmolds.com/Troubleshooting.htm

Either of your first two examples, aside from the size issue Arial is a Helvetica like sans serif and it shows as a serif font, probably Times Roman.

In Australia, your website displays perfectly, showing the Arial and Open Sans fonts and sitting within the page size correctly. However, when viewing it on geopeeker the whole site is in Times Roman or Georgia and the titles and text over run in the green border, or get cut off, so I would question the accurracy of Geopeeker as it is not accurately showing how your site is displaying for me on my computer here in Australia. When I put some of my sites through Geopeeker yesterday it showed every single site displaying in Times Roman or Georgia, and with the overun/cut off of text etc, even though in most of them the main fonts are Arial and Open Sans, which are websafe fonts and should embed in the site and display accurately. My cousin in Manchester checks my sites for me after I have made them, and they have all displayed accurately there, but Geopeeker displays all of them incorrectly. I have just looked at some of Gary's websites on my screen here in Australia, all displaying beautifully, but when put through Geopeeker the fonts are also changed to TR/Georgia. So I wouldn't rely on Geopeeker to see how your sites are displaying for site visitors around the world as it is clearly not accurate.

Yes, I see that my example was a mistake, but the general idea comes across right? :)

Not sure what you mean Marjorie. Your site is perfect here, but geokeeper shows it is not. So the problem is with geokeeper and not your website. The google support I communicated with a couple of years ago said the incorrect displaying of fonts and elements after a change is definitely a search engine caching issue as they are so efficient at embedding the data, and there is not much that can be done about that. I also make sites in Wordpress, WooCom and Weebly and the mish mash after updating is not suppose to happen in these as they are auto update as you make the changes, but it still does, most especially in the mobile display.

Another example of the inaccuracy of Geopeeker. I just looked at some forum members websites from different parts of the world, and they display perfectly for me, but on Geopeeker they are all over the place (wrong fonts, run offs, etc). So again, it may be an idea to not rely at all on Geopeeker as it is so inaccurate.

Hi Marjorie, I see I can't PM you so please contact me at egg-tg@parkeston.com. I'll then test your published site on my server.

I have been doubting the ability in GeoPeeker, so thank you for confirming this. Do you know of any other service that is better?So when you do an update for a client and the results aren't as they should be, what do you say to them? Sorry, wait it out a few hours?The exported files are looking ok regardless. The previews in Xara are also looking ok. The dates and times in the exported files are changing correctly as well, so it must be over-writing the files ok.Refreshing the page, deleting my Chrome cache in settings and ctrl+F5 still does not show the correct font formatting. Even deleting the files from the file manager and then uploading again bring the same results in all of the 5 browsers that I use.

I will. Thank you.

marjorie, CloudFlare caches your JavaScript and CSS. If you are able to turn on development mode, which is what I do, your problems should go away.

To "prove" my guess, open https://www.madaboutmolds.com/index_...s/xr_fonts.css and try a hard refresh on that page (Ctrl+F5). Then open your site page and see if it recovers to what you expect.
You might need to do the same with https://www.madaboutmolds.com/index_...MobileFonts.js.

Acorn

Oh now, this is AMAZING! you are right, it did fix it! THANK YOU so so much!!! This has taken me weeks to figure out! I had actually tried this earlier, but for some reason, it didn't work for me then. Maybe I was just reloading the page back then I don't know. So what does this tell us? Do I need to stop using CloudFlare? Or is it ok to just leave "Development Mode" turned on for all my clients? Or does that disable the SSL certificate?

Harray :)

EDIT:

or even

Hurrah

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Originally Posted by marjorie

Oh now, this is AMAZING! you are right, it did fix it! THANK YOU so so much!!! This has taken me weeks to figure out! I had actually tried this earlier, but for some reason, it didn't work for me then. Maybe I was just reloading the page back then I don't know. So what does this tell us? Do I need to stop using CloudFlare? Or is it ok to just leave "Development Mode" turned on for all my clients? Or does that disable the SSL certificate?

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Great! You need only select it before an upload. It does not affect SSL certification. Keep CloudFlare as it improves response time world-wide.

Acorn

Thank you again! It's so good to finally know why these issues were happening. I consider this solved. What is the best way to spread the word about this? Can this thread be tagged with CloudFlare? I'm so grateful to put this behind me. Thank you!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by marjorie

Thank you again! It's so good to finally know why these issues were happening. I consider this solved. What is the best way to spread the word about this? Can this thread be tagged with CloudFlare? I'm so grateful to put this behind me. Thank you!!

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marjorie, I have raised this issue as a Dear Xara Thread, https://www.talkgraphics.com/showthr...Xara-Resources, with an idea on how Xara could overcome the CloudFlare (etc) caching.

Acorn