How to Clear Cache and Cookies in Your Browser

Overview

If a page in Vome will not load properly, a button does nothing, or you are still seeing information you know you changed, your browser is probably serving you an old copy of the page.

Start with a hard refresh. It fixes most of these cases in two seconds and does not sign you out of anything. Only clear cookies if the hard refresh does not work, because that does sign you out.

1. What should I try first?

A hard refresh, which reloads the page while ignoring the cached copy.

Windows: Ctrl + Shift + R
Mac: Cmd + Shift + R

If the problem was a stale page, that is the whole fix. Try it two or three times before moving on.

2. What is the difference between cache and cookies?

Worth knowing, because only one of the two costs you anything:

Cache is a stored copy of parts of a site, such as images and scripts, kept so pages load faster next time. Clearing it costs you nothing but a slightly slower first load.
Cookies hold data like your login session and preferences. Clearing them signs you out of most sites, Vome included.

Both can go stale or get corrupted, which is what produces the odd behaviour.

Clearing cookies signs you out of Vome and most other sites. Make sure you know your password, or can reset it, before you do this.

3. What is the quickest way to open the clearing dialog?

One keyboard shortcut works in Chrome, Edge and Firefox:

Windows: Ctrl + Shift + Delete
Mac: Cmd + Shift + Delete

That saves hunting through menus, which is useful because browsers keep renaming these screens. Set the time range to All time, tick the cookies and cached files boxes, and confirm.

4. Google Chrome

Click the three-dot menu at the top right.
Go to Settings then Privacy and security then Delete browsing data. Older versions of Chrome call this Clear browsing data.
Set the Time range to All time.
Tick Cookies and other site data and Cached images and files.
Click Delete data (or Clear data).
Restart Chrome and log back in to Vome.

5. Microsoft Edge

Click the three-dot menu at the top right.
Go to Settings then Privacy, search, and services.
Under Clear browsing data, click Choose what to clear.
Set the Time range to All time.
Tick Cookies and other site data and Cached images and files.
Click Clear now, then restart Edge.

6. Mozilla Firefox

Click the menu icon at the top right.
Go to Settings then Privacy & Security.
Scroll to Cookies and Site Data and click Clear Data.
Tick Cookies and Site Data and Cached Web Content.
Click Clear, then restart Firefox.

7. Safari on Mac

Click Safari in the menu bar and choose Settings, called Preferences in older versions.
Open the Privacy tab.
Click Manage Website Data.
To clear Vome only, search for vomevolunteer, select the results and click Remove. To clear everything, click Remove All and confirm.
Restart Safari and go back to Vome.

8. What about the Vome mobile app?

Browser cache has nothing to do with it, so clearing it changes nothing there.

For the app, force-close it and reopen it. If the problem survives that, check that the app is up to date in the App Store or Google Play, since an old build is the usual cause.

9. What should I expect afterwards?

You will need to log back in to Vome, and to other sites.
The first page load will be slightly slower while the cache rebuilds.
Stale-page and stuck-button problems should be gone.

10. It is still broken. What now?

Work through these in order, because each rules something out:

Try a different browser. If it works there, the problem is your original browser's setup, not Vome.
Disable extensions, particularly ad blockers and script blockers, which are a common cause of buttons that do nothing.
Update your browser to the current version.
Send us the details. Open Help in Vome, click Chat with support, and use Export debug logs from the same menu to attach what your browser recorded. That log tells us far more than a description can.

Summary

Try a hard refresh first: Ctrl + Shift + R, or Cmd + Shift + R on a Mac.
Clearing cache costs you nothing. Clearing cookies signs you out.
Ctrl + Shift + Delete (or Cmd + Shift + Delete) opens the clearing dialog in Chrome, Edge and Firefox.
Set the time range to All time and tick both the cookies and the cached files boxes.
Safari handles this under Settings then Privacy then Manage Website Data, where you can clear Vome alone.
For the mobile app, force-close it and check for an update instead.
If it persists, try another browser, disable extensions, then send us your debug logs.

Clearing cache and cookies to fix Vome