Flexa Cache

Changelog

1.3.2

• New: Flexa Cache now tells you when another page cache is running on your site. It checks for other caching plugins, an advanced-cache.php drop-in owned by another plugin, managed hosts with their own server cache (WP Engine, Kinsta, SiteGround, Pantheon and others), and CDNs or proxies that cache your pages (Cloudflare, Varnish, LiteSpeed, Nginx, CloudFront, Bunny, Fastly, Sucuri). Warnings appear on the Cache settings screen and in Site Health. It only reports what it finds; nothing in the other cache is changed.
• Developers: new REST route flexa-cache/v1/cache/layers and filters flexa_cache/layers/findings and flexa_cache/layers/plugins.
• New: turn on object cache analytics from the Object Cache tab and choose how many requests are sampled. You no longer need to edit wp-config.php by hand.
• Fix: turning the object cache back on no longer makes plugins look deactivated. Redis could still hold old settings from the last time it was used, including the list of active plugins. The old data is now cleared when the object cache is switched on. If your site is already affected, updating fixes it: the cached data is cleared once on the first page load after the update.
• Fix: a post moved to the trash could stay cached and keep showing to visitors. Its cached page is now cleared when it is trashed, unpublished or deleted, and the old address is also cleared when you change a post’s slug.
• Fix: with “Exclude mobile” on, phones and tablets could still get a cached page that a desktop visitor had created. Mobile visitors now always get a fresh page.
• Fix: visitors matching “Excluded user agents” could still get a cached page that another visitor had created. They now always get a fresh page.
• Change: the page cache is now cleared automatically after Flexa Cache is updated, so pages cached by the old version do not keep showing.
• Fix: with “Minify HTML” on, text in neighbouring elements could run together, for example a sale price showing as “$48$43” or menu items with no gap. The space between them is now kept.
• Fix: with “Render-blocking JS” or “Delay JS” on, WooCommerce product pages could show “wp is not defined” errors because a WordPress core script ran before the script it needs. Scripts that others depend on now load in the right order.
• Fix: lazy load no longer delays the logo and the main product image that WordPress marks as high priority.
• Fix: lazy load no longer changes image markup inside inline scripts, which could break those scripts.
• Fix: after you add a page to the exclusions, its old cached copy kept showing. Saving a change to any exclusion list now clears the page cache, so the change takes effect straight away.
• Fix: on sites with WooCommerce or another plugin that ships Action Scheduler, the preloader stopped after the first few pages and the progress bar stayed at the same count. It now finishes the run, and a run that is already stuck continues on its own after updating once you open the Flexa Cache screen.
• Fix: a page opened by someone who had left a comment could be cached with their name and email filled in the comment form, and then shown to other visitors. Those visitors’ pages are no longer stored.
• Fix: with widget cache on, search forms and dropdown widgets lost their search box and select list. They now keep working, and the categories dropdown is left uncached so choosing a category still opens it.
• Fix: widget cache showed the same menu or category highlight on every page. Widgets are now cached per page, and filtered shop pages are not cached.
• Fix: “Separate mobile cache” now takes effect as soon as you save it.
• Fix: turning caching off and back on no longer shows pages cached before it was switched off.
• Fix: turning on “Preload” now starts warming the cache straight away, and the cache is no longer crawled while caching is off.
• Tweak: the Language option is hidden while English is the only choice.
• Fix: re-saving the Redis connection with the password field left blank removed the saved password from wp-config.php. It is now kept, as the “unchanged” hint says.
• Tweak: the longest object cache chart view now covers the last 2 hours (was 5 hours), matching how long the history is kept.
• Fix: the page cache could store copies of your site for any made-up domain name a request claimed to be for, which a bot could use to fill the disk. Only your site’s own domain is cached now. Developers can allow more domains with the flexa_cache/engine/allowed_hosts filter.
• Fix: after a post was published, edited or removed, its category, tag, author and date archives (and their page 2, 3 and so on) kept showing the old list. They are now cleared too, including when you only add or remove a category or tag.
• Fix: a page could still be cached when something during rendering made it uncacheable, such as a product added to the cart. Every check now runs again before the page is stored.
• Fix: with “Browser caching” on, CSS and JavaScript files were told to expire after one month in one header and one year in another. Both now say one year. The rules are refreshed when you update the plugin.
• Fix: a guest could see another guest’s WooCommerce “Recently Viewed Products” list, in the widget cache and in cached pages. Visitors with that list now get a fresh page, and the Recently Viewed and Cart widgets are never cached. The Cart widget also fills in correctly again with widget cache on.
• Fix: with “Separate mobile cache” or “Exclude mobile” on, pages now send a Vary: User-Agent header so a proxy or CDN in front of your site keeps phone and desktop copies apart.
• Fix: Kindle, Silk, BlackBerry and Opera Mobi devices are now recognised as mobile by the page cache in the same way as by WordPress, so “Exclude mobile” and “Separate mobile cache” apply to them.
• Fix: with “Separate mobile cache” on, widgets are cached separately for phones and desktops.
• New: an “Enable Flexa Cache” master switch at the top of General Settings. Turning it off stops everything the plugin does (page cache, optimizations, widget cache, browser caching and Gzip rules, Redis object cache) without losing your settings. Turn it back on and everything returns as it was.
• Tweak: the old “Enable caching” toggle is now called “Enable page cache”, since it only controls the page cache.
• Tweak: the Exclusions tab shows “Exclude logged-in users” again, locked on, with a short explanation. Logged-in users have always bypassed the cache since 1.3.1; the toggle is there so you can see it.

1.3.1

• Fix: clearing the cache for one post no longer empties the whole page cache. Every post purge also clears the home page, and clearing a URL used to delete everything stored beneath it, so a single edit wiped every cached page on the site. Now only the files for that exact URL are removed.
• Fix: pages rendered for a logged-in user are never stored. With “Exclude logged-in users” turned off, a logged-in visit could be cached (admin bar, account name and all) and then served to anonymous visitors. Logged-in users now always bypass the cache, so that toggle has been removed from the Settings screen.
• Fix: the “Excluded cookies” list now works. It was saved but never checked. Any visitor with a cookie whose name contains one of the listed values now skips the cache, both when pages are written and when the drop-in serves them.
• Fix: after a plugin update, the advanced-cache.php and object-cache.php drop-ins are refreshed automatically on the next admin page load if they no longer match the bundled copy. Drop-ins that belong to another plugin are never touched.
• Fix: Site Health no longer reports the object-cache drop-in as out of date on every site. It was compared with the plugin version instead of the drop-in’s own version.
• Fix: wp flexa-cache oc enable --force now actually replaces an object-cache.php from another plugin, as documented. Without --force a foreign drop-in is still left alone.
• Fix: deactivating the plugin now flushes and removes the object-cache drop-in, which previously kept running with the plugin switched off. Your Redis connection settings in wp-config.php are kept, and reactivating reinstalls the drop-in when the object cache is enabled.

1.3.0

• New: an optional deactivation feedback survey. If you deactivate Flexa Cache from the Plugins screen, a short survey asks why, so we can fix what is not working. It is anonymous (a random per-site id, no email or domain), runs only in the admin, and never blocks or delays deactivation. If you reactivate later, that win-back is recorded too (anonymously). Disable it all with add_filter( 'flexa_cache/deactivation_survey/enabled', '__return_false' );. See External services for exactly what is sent.

1.2.0

• New: a fresh install now turns on the safe basics automatically, so the plugin caches and optimizes from the moment you activate it. Activation enables the page cache (and installs the drop-in), gzip and browser caching (.htaccess), HTML and CSS minify, lazy loading, emoji removal, async Google Fonts, and cache purge on new/updated posts. Logged-in users bypass the cache by default. The JS/CSS combine options and the aggressive Delay JS / Render-Blocking JS optimizers stay off until you opt in, so a new install never risks a broken front end unattended. Every toggle remains editable on the Settings screen.
• New: a one-time setup wizard opens the first time you visit the plugin screen on a fresh install. Three quick steps: pick a preset (Safe, Balanced, or Manual), optionally head to Redis object-cache setup, and optionally run preload. A “Skip setup” link keeps the safe defaults and closes it. Once finished, the wizard never shows again.
• Note: this applies to new installs only. Updating an existing site keeps your current settings exactly as they are, and the wizard does not appear.

1.1.3

• Fix: WooCommerce cart, checkout, and account pages are no longer altered by the JS optimizers. Delay JS and Render-Blocking JS apply to every front-end response, not just cached ones, and their shared safety gate did not skip these per-user pages; deferring or delaying their scripts could leave the cart partially rendered (most visibly the block-based cart, which needs JS to hydrate). The gate now excludes is_cart(), is_checkout(), and is_account_page(), matching the page cache, which already skipped them. The checks are guarded so they stay inert when WooCommerce is not active.
• Change: a fresh install now seeds the Excluded URLs list with /cart, /checkout, and /my-account, so those pages are never cached or optimized out of the box. The list remains fully editable.

1.1.2

• Fix: the exclusion textareas on the Settings screen (Excluded URLs, user agents, cookies, stylesheets, and scripts) now accept the Enter key to start a new line. Each keystroke was previously trimmed and had empty lines stripped before being redisplayed, so the caret could never move onto a fresh line; the field now keeps your raw text while typing and only normalizes to one entry per line when the settings are saved.

1.1.1

• Fix: Delay JS / Render-Blocking JS / Combine JS no longer break scripts that carry inline code. A script with wp_add_inline_script() before/after data (most visibly WordPress core’s wp-i18n, whose after-script calls wp.i18n.setLocaleData()) is now left un-delayed, un-deferred, and un-combined, because that inline companion runs at parse time and would otherwise throw “wp is not defined”. The Combine JS path recovers the handle from the tag’s id attribute so it can protect the same scripts even though it operates on the rendered buffer. This also resolves knock-on breakage of scripts that depend on those globals.
• Fix: the admin-bar “Flexa Cache” submenu no longer stays hidden on hover when JS optimization is enabled. The WordPress toolbar script depends on hoverintent-js; Combine JS / Delay JS / Render-Blocking now auto-exclude it alongside admin-bar (it was previously left in), so the submenu opens reliably.
• Compatibility: tested and confirmed working with WordPress 7.1. No other code changes were required — the admin app loads only on the plugin’s own settings screen (not the iframed block editor) and uses no @wordpress/components, jQuery UI, or block-editor assets affected by 7.1.

1.1.0

• New: Object Cache (Redis) module — a persistent object cache installed as an object-cache.php drop-in (in-memory L1 + Redis L2). Caches options, transients, and meta/query data across requests.
• New: admin Object Cache tab — status banner, “Test & save connection” (writes wp-config.php, secrets never in the database), metrics, groups table, and flush controls.
• New: crash-safe resilience — in-request degrade to in-memory, cross-request circuit breaker with cooldown, on_error policy, and a Site Health check. Redis outages never cause a white screen.
• New: serializers (PHP/igbinary/JSON/msgpack) and compression (LZ4/Zstd/LZF), key prefetch, alloptions splitting, and per-*-queries TTL.
• New: observability — hit-ratio/ops/memory analytics, per-group key table, Query Monitor panel, request footnote, and a vendor-neutral flexa_cache/object_cache/trace hook.
• New: WP-CLI wp flexa-cache oc (enable, disable, status, flush, diagnostics, analytics, watch, groups, slowlog, cli, reset), and REST endpoints under /flexa-cache/v1/object-cache.
• New: multisite support with per-site and network flush scopes; TLS, unix socket, and ACL (username) connections.
• Note: advanced Redis topologies (Cluster, Sentinel, Replicated, Relay/Predis) are provided by the separate Flexa Cache Pro add-on.

1.0.3

• Cleanup: removed the unused /ping starter REST endpoint left over from the plugin scaffold.
• Docs: the readme source-code section now documents the build tooling (npm install → npm run build) alongside the public repository link.

1.0.2

• Fix: CSS minify (aggressive HTML minify and CSS combine) no longer strips whitespace around :, which previously fused descendant combinators into compound selectors before a pseudo-class (:root :where(…) → :root:where(…)) and silently dropped WordPress global-styles rules — most visibly Gutenberg button styles. Whitespace around { } ; , is still collapsed.

1.0.1

• Security: cache purge, stats, and preload REST endpoints now require the manage_options capability instead of upload_files, so only administrators can trigger site-wide cache operations.
• Hardening: cached widget output is now passed through wp_kses_post() before it is echoed.
• Cleanup: removed a dead pre-WordPress-5.7 raw <script> fallback in the delay-JS loader; the core wp_print_inline_script_tag() helper is now always used.
• CSS/JS combine and minify now rewrite the URL of the stylesheet/script tag WordPress already enqueued and printed, instead of emitting a freshly-built tag — preserving the original tag attributes.

1.0.0

• Initial release: page cache drop-in, 23 optimization toggles, WP-CLI, REST API, cache preloader, widget cache, mobile theme cache, i18n-ready.