Anyone know a way around this? Urgent!

[boxingscene]

Over the weekend, my sql server went down, I put up a quick index.html page stating that the site was down for server changes. I brought my server back up within a few minutes, deleted the index.html page and put the index.php page back in.

Here is the problem, as of yesterday, almost two days later, some of my users who are members of AOL are still getting the index.html page when landing on my website, even though the index.html page does not exist.

After speaking with a few people, I was told that AOL has the index.html page in their cache and that is why users are getting it. I even put a redirect in my htaccess file and no dice.

My questions are, is there a way around this? how can I force an AOL cache update and how long will this last?

[Reeve of shinra]

Tell them not use the browser thats built into AOL. Have them launch IE seperately (or better yet Firefox).

Alternately,.. I think its shift-F5 to refresh a page.

[boxingscene]

Originally Posted by Reeve of shinra

Tell them not use the browser thats built into AOL. Have them launch IE seperately (or better yet Firefox).

Alternately,.. I think its shift-F5 to refresh a page.

Only problem is how can I tell "new" users who are coming to the page and seeing an index.html page which does not exist, to change to make the change.

Is there a way to force AOL to do a cache refresh and how long with their cache store last?

[assassingod]

I doubt new users using AOL would see the index.html page. Only AOL users who have already seen it, and it's in their cache. Ask them to clear their cache (Ctrl+F5 will work as a hard refresh)

New users won't see the index.html page.

[boxingscene]

Originally Posted by assassingod

I doubt new users using AOL would see the index.html page. Only AOL users who have already seen it, and it's in their cache. Ask them to clear their cache (Ctrl+F5 will work as a hard refresh)

New users won't see the index.html page.

I made someone go on my site who has never been on it, at least over a day after the fact and they still got the old index.html page even though it does not exist and the main page is a .php page.

I even made a redirect by way .htaccess to point to index.php and still no dice.

[assassingod]

Originally Posted by boxingscene

I made someone go on my site who has never been on it, at least over a day after the fact and they still got the old index.html page even though it does not exist and the main page is a .php page.

I even made a redirect by way .htaccess to point to index.php and still no dice.

Take a look at http://webmaster.info.aol.com/caching.html.

There may be some info there that might help!

[Erwin]

Originally Posted by assassingod

Take a look at http://webmaster.info.aol.com/caching.html.

There may be some info there that might help!

Some ISPs have proxy caches that don't update often.

[boxingscene]

Originally Posted by Erwin

Some ISPs have proxy caches that don't update often.

Actually the question should really be what kind of code can I put in on the server or the index page to force a proxy like AOL to do a cache refresh?