Mastodon/Fediverse:
How long does it “typically” take for a server to refresh something like a link preview? I changed the featured image on my website, but it’s been days and it still comes up as my old one on here. Is any aspect of that due to my local cache, or is it all server side? Speak to me the way you would to a fourth grader.
The preview should be a dark graphic with my name, not a portrait of me.
@dtm If you change anything about the url, it will refetch. So just add a fake query string to the end and you’ll see the updated link.
@box464 A little over my head but very helpful. I’ve often been perplexed by this. The fake query string would be “?test-it” or is there more. Can’t tell if it’s being cut off.
@dtm If you’re interested in the specifics, check this out!
@dtm Mastodon.social (in a browser) has the photo, but it's a mastodon copy, with a "random" name, so it's hard to know where it came from, or when Mastodon may have copied it. Have you or could you share a different page, one less likely to have been shared before?
@GrumpusNation It shares the featured image of individual posts accurately. This is the preview for the site itself. It’s not that it’s not sharing a link preview, it’s that it’s caching an old one.
@dtm Individual posts are ok, because they're less likely to change featured images, and the first time they're shared, they're cached, but I don't know for how long. You could check with your instance admin, maybe, to see if they know of any public cache clearing tools (probably not) or what the lifetime is, at least.
@GrumpusNation The thing is, different people are seeing different things. Some old. Some new. So, it’s clearly being cached by the instance. Are those cached forever, I wonder?
