Logged into my Gmail account today, and its got a big, red banner across the top which says, “Your browser’s cache is full and may interfere with your Gmail experience.” (Gmails FAQ on this)
Well, thats an interesting statement with lots of implications.
As a software developer, your job when diagnosing problems is to be an investigator. To figure out why something is crashing or why something is slow requires collecting of evidence, analyzing the evidence, and ultimately trying to apply that back to the bug and symptoms. Sometimes, unfortunately, problems are hard to investigate, and even some pretty smart developers can come up with what I would call voodoo explanations. It used to be that people sometimes ran into “compiler bugs” or “optimizer bugs”. But these days, when a developer claims its one of these, its usually a pathetic, last-ditch effort to explain why his code is not working. The compiler bug is just pretty darned unlikely. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I saw a bug that was actually the compiler’s fault. I’m sure they exist, they are just realy rare. The reason they are unlikely is because there is so much code exercising the compiler that there is just a huge amount of testing on it. If there were a bug, lots of software, not just yours, would be broken.
Gmail’s claim that my browser cache being full also sounds like voodoo to me. I searched around to see if there were any other products claiming performance woes due to the cache, and I can’t find any. I also can’t find any support articles from Microsoft. Now, I could believe a turned off cache could cause problems. But logically, it doesn’t sound right to me that somehow the cache being full is the cause of Google’s troubles. The cache, when full, should rotate out the old content, and new content gets cached. Its a pretty simple algorithm, and if it were broken, wouldn’t most other web applications be suffering as well?
So, gmail, whats the nitty gritty? Do you have empirical evidence? Prove to us this isn’t voodoo engineering!
Althought this posting is some time ago, this has just happened to me. Following the instructions to delete files didn’t resolve the problem, nor did following the link to the Microsoft Support site and following their instructions re moving the file, deleting and recreating. Do I just have to live with this red banner from now on?
Same with me … I can’t get rid of that red banner no matter what I do. I’ve even go so far as going to the Temporary Internet Files and manually deleting everything there, but still no luck …
Ditto here. However, I have two gmail accounts. On one I have no problems with and the other I get a red banner. I have tried clearing and moving the folder, but those attempts have not fixed the problem.
Use https://mail.google.com. Had the same problem, changed my address, and it went away. Atleast for the time being.
I have 2 gmail accts. Both are giving me the big red banner claiming my cache is full. One of the accts. is brand new, the other I’ve had for awhile. The message shows up on both. I have done everything as instructed in their help section and the banner still remains! Have even run a search of my system for other possible areas of temp files and deleted a few. Also browser is set up to auto delete the files when it closes.
Plus there is no way to directly contact a live person to discuss it!!
Has anyone found a way to clear this since you posted?
Thanks!
Hi there guys, very interesting discussion here. I too was looking for a solution when I chanced upon this site. Here’s a curious discovery: When I checked my 3 gmail accounts in internet explorer I came up with the red banner. (Truly irritating!)
However, when I checked the same accounts in the ‘Mozilla Firefox’ browser, the red banner was gone! Voodoo I tell you… lol. Go figure. Hope this provides some more food for thought.
Cheers!
Dean, I checked my gmail account with Mozilla and the red banner was gone. Thanks… I have been obsessing on this problem for weeks now. My son has been trying to convince me that Mozilla is better than Explorer and I believe him now.
I just sent them a feedback, before I came across all these other comments and this blog that it must be a bug in Gmail. (Imagine that!).
Even when I click the “Hide” this button , the message disappears only to reappear.
One would think that once I tld Gmail to hide the display message, it meant I did not care to see it again.
So when the red banner appeared so did a new Loading sign in the top left corner with a blue time line. then the next week only every now and then would internet explorer open my email account – usually a pop up would appear saying internet explorer could not open site. then next week i could never get in so i followed the instructions deleting temp files and restarting my computer and only then will it let me in and now i have to do it EVERYTIME before i want to access my gmail account.
What’s weird this only happens at work. At home i still get the banner but i get let into my account without having to do any deleting and restarting. And both home and work use internet explorer???
I have also run into this mess but I have noticed a pattern. It only happens at work and only at one of my clients. I believe this is all tied to some filtering or firewall that the client has in place that is affecting Gmail. At home and anywhere else I connect I have no red banner. As soon as I go to Gmail from this client’s network I immediately get the red banner.
Also, the only way I was able to get rid of it at that client’s site was by using the https://mail.google.com address which I guess affects how the client filtering or firewall treats my outgoing/incoming network traffic.
Hope this helps narrow down the actuall issue.
Pablo
I notice that this happens when I’m behind blue coat, but when I take the same Vista 32/IE 7 machine and plug it into a cable modem without the blue coat, no warning message. The strange thing is that the message doesn’t show up every time, only most of the time. It has nothing to do with my browser cache at any rate. Last time I checked there isn’t a way for a server to know that I even have caching enabled on my browser, let alone tell me that it’s full by checking something.
This happens on both IE6 & 7 and on XP SP3 & SP2.
Not an issue on Firefox 3
So this looks like a gmail / IE issue and the error message is totally misleading and erroneous as the browser cache is not full.
I’ve fed this back to google – but as this has been going on for some time they must be aware of it by now.
As you say – voodo coding – probably a miscoded error trap.
Browser catch is full red alert message troubling tne workings of my internet down loadingd from my files Although this posting is some time ago, this has just happened to me. Following the instructions to delete files didn’t resolve the problem, nor did following the link to the Microsoft Support site and following their instructions removing the file, deleting Same problem persists and not able to download. exact solutions required
I want to thank Pablo for his advice, used the https:// and now that freaking red banner is gone.