Why Won’t My NationBuilder Events Update on My Homepage?

If you have a custom NationBuilder theme that includes a list of upcoming events on the homepage (or elsewhere), you may notice that sometimes that list may appear outdated.

Here’s a quick list of reasons why your NationBuilder events page may not update on your homepage and what you can do about it.

How NationBuilder Events Are Shown on the Homepage

NationBuilder’s website platform is built using thirty “page types,” each with a distinct purpose and functionality. These include events that capture RSVPs and calendars that list events.

A NationBuilder custom theme often uses a “basic” page as the homepage, with custom code designed to “import” content from other pages on the website. For example, there may be code built into your website theme that imports upcoming events from a calendar page on your website.

When you make changes to your event or calendar pages and visit your homepage, your homepage is “compiled” (or rebuilt) to include the most up-to-date information.

Why Your Homepage (Likely) Isn’t Showing Updated Events

NationBuilder leverages a technique known as “caching” web pages to speed up page load and improve the overall user experience.

What is caching?

Caching is the process of saving website pages in a cache (i.e., a temporary storage location) so they can be accessed more quickly.

Usually, when NationBuilder notices that you’ve updated a page on your website (or that an event’s date has passed), it automatically updates the cached version of the page to show the correct data.

But because your homepage is a separate page, sometimes NationBuilder does not recognize that a change to the event or calendar page should affect the homepage's cache. As a result, the homepage’s cached version is not updated, and you continue to see a now-outdated version of the page.

How To Manually Update Your Website’s Cache

If you notice that one or more pages on your NationBuilder website are not updating to reflect your saved changes, you can manually for NationBuilder to update its cache.

To “clear” your website’s cache and force pages to reload all data, navigate to your control panel to:

Websites > [Your Site] > Site settings > Clear cache

Sometimes, clicking “clear cache” once is not enough to achieve the desired results. I recommend clicking on “clear cache” two or three times to ensure it works. 

Conclusion

Suppose you have a custom NationBuilder theme that includes a list of upcoming events on the homepage (or elsewhere), and you notice that the homepage is not updated. In that case, NationBuilder’s “cached” pages may be to blame.

You can often resolve this problem by “clearing” your site‘s cache in just a few clicks.