I published, but the site still shows the old version
You made the change, the work happened - and the page you’re looking at is still the old one. Few things are more quietly maddening, because it makes you doubt whether the work happened at all.
The prompt
“I made a change to [the page] a while ago but the site I’m looking at still shows the old version - work out why: check whether it’s actually published, whether the address I’m viewing is served by bernard, and whether an old copy is stuck anywhere, then tell me plainly what visitors see now.”
Signed in, Get my prompt fills in your site for you. Otherwise press Copy and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard once: Use your own AI (opens in a new tab).
It almost always did. A change can hide in four places, and your AI can tell you which in one ask - in rough order of likelihood:
1. It isn’t published yet
Every change starts life as a draft - private, visible in your preview, and not on the live site until it’s approved and published. If you (or your AI) have been making a run of changes, it’s easy for the last batch to still be sitting in the draft. The live site cannot show unpublished work, no matter how finished it looks in the preview. Ask “is everything published?” - and see How do I approve or undo changes? for how approval works.
2. You’re looking at an address bernard doesn’t serve yet
If your own domain is still connecting to bernard, that address carries on showing your old website - publishing here doesn’t change it, and never will until the connection completes. Your site is always up to date at its bernard address; ask your AI for it, and see I connected my domain but it’s stuck if the connection has stalled.
3. The preview you opened has frozen
The draft preview shows the draft as it was when you opened it. If you click around inside it while changes are still landing, you stay on that older snapshot. Re-open the preview link (or hard-reload it) and you’ll see the latest draft - nothing was lost.
4. A remembered copy
Your browser, your phone or a network between you and the site may hold on to the page it fetched earlier. On a bernard-hosted site those copies are deliberately short-lived - minutes, not hours - so the ordinary cure is patience measured in moments, or a refresh in a private window.
What publishing actually does
When you press Approve, your change is made live and the site’s stored copies are refreshed straight away. Bernard then checks its own work: it fetches the public page the way a visitor would, from where bernard’s server is, and confirms the new version is really being served there - and if an old copy survived the refresh, it clears it again automatically. So “the app says live” isn’t a guess; it’s been looked at.
When it’s been more than a few minutes
That’s the moment to stop refreshing and ask. Use the prompt above - your AI walks the same four possibilities in order and tells you plainly which one it is: still in the draft, the wrong address, a frozen preview, or a genuinely stuck copy it can clear and re-check on every address your site answers on. A screenshot of what you’re seeing - address bar included - settles it even faster: see Something looks wrong - can I just show it a picture?.
One thing it will never do is paper over the problem by rewriting your pages with version numbers or workaround links. If a copy is stuck, the copy gets cleared; your pages stay clean.
If the new version was the mistake
Sometimes the page IS live and the sinking feeling is about what you shipped. That’s recoverable too - your site keeps its history, and any page can be put back exactly how it was.
Questions people ask
- How long should publishing take?
- Usually one to three minutes, and longer for a big site, because every publish uploads your whole site again. When you press Approve (or ask your AI to publish something you’ve told it to), the change is queued, uploaded, and the site’s stored copies are refreshed - bernard then double-checks that the public page really serves the new version.
- My AI said it was published, but a minute later the page is still old - is something wrong?
- Probably not. “Published” can mean the publish has STARTED: your changes have left the draft, but the upload is still running. Until it finishes, every address - including the ones your AI checks - shows the old page. Give it a couple of minutes, then ask your AI “has the publish finished?” It can see the publish itself and will tell you when it is done, rather than guessing from the page.
- My AI says the change looks right, but I can’t see it - who’s wrong?
- Probably neither of you - you’re most likely looking at two different things. Your AI checks the draft; you may be looking at the live site, which only updates when the change is approved and published. Ask it directly: ‘is this published yet, and which address should I be looking at?’ - it can answer that exactly.
- I’m looking at my own domain and nothing ever changes - why?
- If your domain hasn’t finished connecting to bernard, it still shows your OLD website - no amount of publishing here changes what that address serves. Check the bernard address for your site (your AI will give it to you), and ask it to check your domain connection.
- I refreshed and it’s still old - is it broken?
- Usually not. Your browser, your phone, or a network in between may hold on to a copy of the old page for a few minutes after a publish. If it’s been longer than that, ask your AI to check - it can tell the difference between ‘your browser is remembering’ and ‘an old copy is genuinely stuck’, and clear a stuck one.
- Someone else sees the new version but I don’t - why?
- That’s the clearest sign it’s a remembered copy on your side, not the site. Old copies expire within minutes on a bernard-hosted site, so give it a moment or open the page in a private window. If a private window ALSO shows the old version well after you approved, ask your AI to investigate.
- My AI says the live page is fresh, but someone in another town still sees the old one - who’s right?
- Possibly both. Copies of your site are kept in many places around the world, and each visitor is served by the one nearest them. When bernard checks a publish, it checks from where bernard’s own server is (Dublin), so ‘fresh’ is proven there. Clearing old copies reaches every place at once, but the check can only see its own. If someone elsewhere still sees the old page, ask your AI to look at that page from where they are and report what it finds, rather than clearing copies again.
- Can the fix itself break anything?
- No - clearing stored copies never changes your site’s content, and nothing about your pages goes live without your approval. The worst case is the next visitor’s page loads fractionally slower once while a fresh copy is fetched.