ElI5 why is the ‘cache’ this all powerful crasher of apps and causer of problems? Why does clearing it fix things?
In: 101
Imagine you discover a restaurant that you really like and you keep ordering from them every day. Each time you order, you have to look up their phone number to call them
After you call them enough times, you don’t need to look up their phone number anymore because you’ve memorized it.
This makes it easier to order because you can skip the step of looking up the phone number.
One day, the restaurant changes their phone number. Now when you call the number you’ve memorized, you get an automated message saying the number is disconnected.
You can’t order anymore until you look up the new phone number.
A cache is like your brain’s memory – it is simply a place for your computer to remember stuff quickly instead of looking it up. Usually it just caches stuff that doesn’t change a lot, but if that stuff DOES change, then your computer doesn’t realize it until it checks (because the whole point is to not be slowed down by checking).
So if your computer’s cache has old “stale” information in it. It can sometimes lead to unexpected results.
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