ZenCache v160103 was released on January 3rd, 2016. This maintenance release includes 4 bug fixes, 1 enhancement, and 1 Akismet Compatibility fix.

This release addresses issues reported with the previous release (v151220) related to writing to the .htaccess file, excluding Nonce values from the cache, and unexpected errors related to the Auto-Cache Engine XML Sitemap URL. This release also fixes the compatibility with the Akismet Comment Nonce. See the full changelog below for further details.

We received many questions after the previous release about why ZenCache longer caches pages that include WordPress Nonce values in the markup. This article addresses those questions and explains this new behavior.

Changelog for ZenCache Pro v160103

  • Bug Fix: Fixed an issue that was unexpectedly producing "Failed to update your /.htaccess file" error messages. The .htaccess routines are now more intelligent and take into consideration which plugin options are enabled and which options require updating the .htaccess file. This also improves performance by avoiding unnecessary read/writes to the .htaccess file. Props @patdumond. See Issue #641.
  • Bug Fix: When allow_url_fopen is disabled via the PHP configuration, the Auto-Cache Engine is unable to read the XML Sitemap and was silently failing with only PHP Warning in the PHP error log. The Auto-Cache Engine currently requires PHP URL-aware fopen wrappers. A new Dashboard notice displays an error message when allow_url_fopen is disabled and prevents the Auto-Cache Engine from attempting to run. See Issue #644.
  • Bug Fix: Fixed an Auto-Cache Engine bug that was producing false-positive Dashboard errors related to timeouts: "Problematic XML Sitemap URL - WP_Http says: Operation timed out after 5001 milliseconds with 0 bytes received." Due to the way ZenCache was checking the XML Sitemap URL more than necessary, timeouts were more likely to occur. We now only check the URL repeatedly when a failure has been encountered. If the URL is confirmed as working, we don't check the URL again until the Auto-Cache Engine runs (every 15 minutes by default) or until the Plugin Options are saved. If you are still seeing timeout errors after this update, please see this article. See Issue #643.
  • Bug Fix: Fixed an Auto-Cache Engine bug where ZenCache would would check both the non-SSL (http://) and the SSL (https://) version of the XML Sitemap URL when the Site Address was configured to use SSL. See Issue #643.
  • Enhancement: It's now possible to override the ZenCache Nonce exclusion globally (dangerous) or only for Logged-In Users (safer). Please see this article for full details. Issue #637.
  • Akismet Compatibility: Fixed a bug with Akismet compatibility where ZenCache was not properly disabling the Akismet Comment Nonce, which resulted in pages being unnecessarily excluded from the cache due to the presence of the akismet_comment_nonce in the markup. Props @Kalfer. See Issue #642.

Upgrading to the Latest Version

ZenCache Pro users who have configured the Plugin Updater (Dashboard → ZenCache → Plugin Updater) should receive a notification to upgrade on the WordPress Dashboard. If you have not configured the Plugin Updater, you can download the latest version of ZenCache Pro by logging into your ZenCache.com account here. You'll find a download link for the latest version on your Account page. There's also a Release Archive if you need to access previous versions of ZenCache.

Please report bugs and feedback on GitHub. If you are a ZenCache Pro user and require priority support, please open a support ticket here.