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Why does using the 'back' button sometimes cause a page reload, but other times does NOT cause a page reload in the same app?

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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I've noticed this on various sites, but I'll use YouTube as an example. I'm sitting on my YouTube 'home' page and I see a set of 'suggestions'. I click on one of the suggested vids and watch it. Afterward, I hit the 'back' button in the browser (there is not an embedded back button in the app). Sometimes hitting the 'back' button takes me back to the same YouTube page with my suggested videos and I can watch another. Other times, hitting the 'back' button causes a new page to load and I now have a new set of suggested videos displayed. This behavior is not consistent - sometime the page load occurs, other times the same page appears. I cannot detect a pattern to this. What's annoying about this is that there may have been more than one thing I wanted to view on the initial 'suggested videos' section of the original page displayed. However, after watching one of the vids and hitting the 'back' button, if a new page loads, I now no longer have access to those other suggested vids I wanted to watch. As I noted earlier, I've seen this behavior in other apps too. I don't know if this is the right place to ask about this, or if it's a browser thing at all, I'm just trying to understand what's causing this behavior and figure out if there's anyway for me to mitigate it.

I've noticed this on various sites, but I'll use YouTube as an example. I'm sitting on my YouTube 'home' page and I see a set of 'suggestions'. I click on one of the suggested vids and watch it. Afterward, I hit the 'back' button in the browser (there is not an embedded back button in the app). Sometimes hitting the 'back' button takes me back to the same YouTube page with my suggested videos and I can watch another. Other times, hitting the 'back' button causes a new page to load and I now have a new set of suggested videos displayed. This behavior is not consistent - sometime the page load occurs, other times the same page appears. I cannot detect a pattern to this. What's annoying about this is that there may have been more than one thing I wanted to view on the initial 'suggested videos' section of the original page displayed. However, after watching one of the vids and hitting the 'back' button, if a new page loads, I now no longer have access to those other suggested vids I wanted to watch. As I noted earlier, I've seen this behavior in other apps too. I don't know if this is the right place to ask about this, or if it's a browser thing at all, I'm just trying to understand what's causing this behavior and figure out if there's anyway for me to mitigate it.

Chosen solution

Hi, This phenomenon is related to each website, that is to say, the websites were built internally with a cache or without cache and the refresh time and configuration to make it dynamic.

best regard #fxhelp #Firefox64SUMOWeek

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Chosen Solution

Hi, This phenomenon is related to each website, that is to say, the websites were built internally with a cache or without cache and the refresh time and configuration to make it dynamic.

best regard #fxhelp #Firefox64SUMOWeek

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It is usually best to open links in a new tab with a mouse middle-click or via the right-click context menu to avoid issues with refreshing the page when you use the Back button because the page may have been expired when you watch a longer video.