ElI5 why is the ‘cache’ this all powerful crasher of apps and causer of problems? Why does clearing it fix things?
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The word “cache” means a collection of items stored in a hidden or otherwise inaccessible place. So you could have a cache of candy hidden from children for example. In computers a cache is a place to store data temporarily. An example would be when a web browser downloads all the data to display a web page then you move on to another one, the browser will want to store the data for the previous page somewhere other than active memory. It doesn’t need to take up the extremely fast RAM but it doesn’t want to download everything again if you press the back button, so there is a folder somewhere with all that data stored away for a time.
If something goes wrong and there is some of that stored data causing the program to have a problem, clearing the cache can help restore things to normal. The browser might be trying to display a web page from the cache but those files were corrupted and the browser goes haywire. Without those files the browser would need to download them again, getting the correct files and not having a problem anymore.
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