Curious thing when looking at a particular database on Google

[#1]

I'm interested in the railways of the UK. Occasionally I look at a database of railway engine sheds on the web. Several months ago I found a few errors on this database, so I contacted the owner and gave him the details he would need. After that, I kept going back to the database but the errors were never corrected, so I mentioned this to a railway forum on the web. This caused the database owner to tell me he had corrected the database as soon as I had told him, but still when I looked at his database the errors were still visible. I tried the Refresh button, but that had no effect.

I didn't use the database again until a few days ago, when I found that my corrections had indeed been loaded. However, I then found some more errors, so I informed the database owner. He emailed today to say he had corrected these too, and thanked me. However, when I went into the database, these new errors were still visible. I used the Refresh button (the circular arrow), but again that did nothing to solve the issue.

I can only think of two possibilities:-

1. There are two copies of the database, the pre-edit and the post-edit version, and I am stuck with access to the pre-edit version;

2. I need to stay away from the database for a few months to give the post-edit version time to work its way through the system.

Does anyone have any suggestions what may be causing this problem, and any possible solutions? I seem to remember last time I asked this forum, but nothing of significance came back (I'm not complaining). Hopefully, better luck this time.

Merry Christmas

[#2]

Should have identified the database. Its https://www.brdatabase.info/sites

[#3]

@penneck   Maybe its something to do with the "Bookmarks" or "Favourites"...

Next time you look at the DataBase... and it is "corrected" as per your suggestions.... Make a new "Bookmark"/"Favourite"...and delete the old one.

Just clicked on your linky after posting the above.... and get this

[#4]

I'm also getting the 404 error

[#5]

I'm also getting the 404 error.

[#6]

I think this is the correct link https://www.brdatabase.info/sites.php 

HTH

[#7]

Fascinating site, I input the only loco number i know -  60009. The reply was instant, which may be part of the update problem. To achieve this response I suspect there's a lot of caching between site and remote enquirer meaning data changes are not seen to be instant.

[#8]

Hello All,

Yes sorry about that. I also get the 404 error message if I use the link I posted, but Dan The Van's link works into the top of the database. However, if I then work my way down into the database, I get to where the database still has the errors, so I am not seeing what should be the latest version.

The link I use normally is "https://www.brdatabase.info/sites.php?page=depots&action=list". That takes me direct to the part of the database that I want to look at. I edited the link to you because I didn't know what those last bits would do. Perhaps I should have posted the complete link and warned that the last bit might need to be edited - wise after the event, as they say

I asked a railway forum that I use if anyone on there had experienced similar problems. One person suggested that clearing the cache and cookies for that site might help, but I dont know how to do that. Why doesn't the Refresh thing do that automatically? Any suggestions as to how to clear the cache and cookies, please? Is it my link causing the problem - are there two versions of the database and my link points only to one of them, doesn't allow me to get at the other one, so I have to wait however long until my version catchs up? 

Thankyou everybody. Have a merry Christmas

[#9]

You could try reloading the page using ctrl + f5  in windows so it reloads and refreshes the local cache. 

[#10]

I have tried your suggestion but it doesn't seem to have done anything. Perhaps I am doing it wrong. I opened the database, found the place where the errors are supposed to have been corrected. It wasn't, so I pressed both cntrl and F5 at the same time - is that the correct method? The errors are still visible.

Merry Christmas

[#11]

Merry Christmas to you too.

It's a bit "old school" so it doesn't work for all browsers. I think most modern software tries to use some logic to assess how stale the cached data is but in your case you need a fresh copy every time which is the challenge.

What's your set up. Windows? Linux? Mac? Etc. what's your browser?

[#12]

Hello @the_groundsman 

I still use Win 7. My pc wont work with Win 10, and just at the moment I cannot go out and buy new hardware. Win 7 works well, and I like it. The only problem is when other software moves on and the latest versions doesnt work with 7, so I have to stay with the older versions (Chrome, Garmin, etc).

However, back to my database problem. It seems that the long list of engine sheds I was looking at hasn't had the data on that page corrected after all. What I didn't know until a few minutes ago was that I could select an individual shed on that list, and a new page would open, specific to that shed. That page has had the data corrected, so it looks like there is no link between the data on the individual shed page and the data on the shed list, so the database owner just needs to correct the data on the shed list.

Hopefully, database problem solved. My thanks to everybody who got involved.

Cheers