Experiencing an issue in the system? Unable to do something that worked perfectly yesterday?
It's possible you are experiencing a Browser issue that may be solved by clearing your Cache & Cookies.
What is a Cache and Can I Use it to Buy a Cookie?
While a warm cookie from the oven sounds really good right now, Cache & Cookies are just different forms of temporary storage kept in your computer or device. They are intended to improve the user experience and the performance of web pages by reducing bandwidth usage, server load, and lag time.
How are they different, you ask (while dreaming of cookies):
Your browser's Cache remembers parts of pages you have previously visited to help them open faster on your next visit. This is especially helpful with images, which can take a while to load if they are new to the browser. To put it simply: your Cache is the place where your browser stores images, code, and other files so you don't have to reload them every time you visit.
On the other hand, Cookies are small files containing useful information, such as your selected preferences, passwords, date/time of visits, browser, IP address, etc. They're like digital breadcrumbs, following you around the web. Every time you load a web page, they go zinging back to the server to report on your previous activity so that the page can more quickly respond to your actions.
When you clear your Cache & Cookies, you are asking your device to dump that data. Why would that help? Well, sometimes the version of a site stored in your cache and the current version of the site may not match. If a website has been recently updated, this conflict can occur, causing all sorts of weird glitches that can make that one thing you need to do today not work correctly.
But, I Don't Want To! I'll Lose Everything!
No need to worry if you're not comfortable clearing cache and cookies for all sites. While it's not a straightforward process, it's doable in most browsers. For instance, in Chrome, you can select the site settings in the browser bar and then delete only the data for the site you're on. These instructions keep changing, so please feel free to use your preferred search engine to look for "how to clear cache for one site" and don't forget to include the browser you're using.
But, HOW?
If we recommend you clear your Cache & Cookies, the instructions will depend on which browser you are using. Click on the link below to be redirected to the instructions on how to perform that action.
 Chrome |  Firefox Cache Firefox Cookies |  Safari |
 Microsoft Edge |  |  |