How to clear cache for razor files when working with ASP.NET web application on localhost

Question

We have an ASP.NET website which uses .NET framework 4.6, and we use rider and visual studio to work on it.

Every once in a while, I have found people getting old razor files that still try to look for functions/references which no longer exist. I understand that those razor files are cached, and we need to clear the cache.

So, we usually go to these steps

Clean %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\\ComponentModelCache
Clean C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root
Clean the \obj and \bin from the project folder structure, wherever applicable.

Some combination of these steps usually work for most people but when it doesnt work, we have to manually go to each razor file (which is complaining with error) and add a space and save it to force clear the cache. Sometimes it a single file or 2 files, but sometimes there are 10 files.

So, would like to know what's the right/recommended way to clear the razor file cache whenever we find this problem again.

Whenever I face such cache issues, i will try open the pages in 'InCognito' window or 'InPrivate' mode in IE. — Thangadurai, Nov 01 '19 at 11:21
@Thangadurai I don't think its the browser cache issue I am talking about here. — Yasser Shaikh, Nov 04 '19 at 07:33
Is this something happening in Visual Studio or does this happen when visiting the site through a browser? — Greg Burghardt, Nov 04 '19 at 16:39
Looks like you might not be the only one: [How to clear templates cache in IIS?](https://github.com/Antaris/RazorEngine/issues/543). — Greg Burghardt, Nov 06 '19 at 11:56
If you published the web application, do you have an option set to pre-compile the razor templates? — Greg Burghardt, Nov 06 '19 at 11:58
Just to clarify. It sounds like you have multiple people developing this on the same computer. Then occasionally someone can't build the project because of cached files? — Skye MacMaster, Nov 06 '19 at 19:44
Are you using a shared location for the project or source control and each person pulls down a local copy of the project? — Skye MacMaster, Nov 07 '19 at 14:08
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49176244/asp-net-core-clear-cache-from-imemorycache-set-by-set-method-of-cacheextensions — , Nov 07 '19 at 14:10

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 08 '19 at 17:02

If you need to clear out the compiled razor files, then "Temporary ASP.NET Files" is the best location, as per this answer.
You could also try to force compilation by adding MvcBuildViews to your build configuration:
```
<PropertyGroup>
  <MvcBuildViews>true</MvcBuildViews>
</PropertyGroup>
```
See this answer for more information.
If none of the above works, a slightly better workaround than opening all the files and adding a space is to update the file modification time of all your views:
```
Get-ChildItem .\Views\ -Recurse | % { $_.LastWriteTime = Get-Date }
```

How to clear cache for razor files when working with ASP.NET web application on localhost

1 Answers1