In WebSite X5, while holding down the left Ctrl key, click on "Preview" at the top and wait until the progress bar at the bottom has run all the way through. This will cause the pages to be rebuilt.

Then export the entire website to the Internet, not just the updated pages.

In the browser, use the key combination Ctrl + F5 to re-request the files from the web server so that old files from the browser cache are not displayed.

Is there a special page where we can see whether it is the old or the new content?

Yes, this is one of the web pages where my content did not update:

https://www.eclectic-ware.com/re-place-a-bar-repair-broken-towel-bar.html

Is there any text on the linked page that shows that it is not the new content?

Short example: old opening text =

Lenape Re-Place-A-Bar, just as it sound, how to replace your broken towel barWE STOCK THE RE-PLACE-A-BAR FOR FAST SHIPMENTS.
You will need to select from 00 Clear, 01 White, or 02 Black from the color drop down menus!

And it should now read:

Lenape Re-Place-A-Bar, just as it sound, how to replace your broken towel barWE HAVE STOCK ON THE RE-PLACE-A-BARs - While stock lasts
We were able to stock up a bit on most. And so far, all are still available. We will note new quantities remaining as our stock goes down. We do have enough stock to last for some time.

I tried your left CTRL button trick and so far all it did was lock up the software and made it unresponsive. I had to hard close it from Task Manager. I just re-opened it and will try again.

So far on second attempt of left CTRL + Preview, status bar gets about 7/8ths of the way done and then just appears to freeze. In Task Manager, it shows Website X5 using about 88 to 98% of the CPU resource. Computer does not sound overburdened. It is doing something, but not stressing to do it. Preview is just stuck from finishing.

Yep, there is a problem. Attempting the preview again just wouldn't budge past the 7/8th mark. All pictures it is attempting to load or collect are on my hard drive. And then when my patience runs out and I close the preview window, it closes, but the program locks up and I cannot do anything except shut it down in task manager.

Again, it worked fine on Dec. 15th and 19th. Didn't change ANYTHING in the software, only made small changes to content on web pages. I have not uploaded any new software to my PC. Only thing recently was a QuickBooks update, but QuickBooks and X5 are not synced in any way.

And this PC is quite capable, it is not old or slow.

Next suggestion?

Test with my demo shop, see screenshots below

Since I don't have a larger project than my demo shop, I can't say whether WebSite X5 is overwhelmed by the keyboard shortcut Ctrl plus clicking on preview for large shops.

-----

-----

Interesting, I did create a few new items, but I also deleted more items than I created. Did not create any new pages. So overall, progam file should be a spec smaller than what it was 2 weeks ago.

True, it could be overwhelming to the left CTRL button. Still need to wonder why it just suddenly decided not to publish changes - RANDOMLY.  This page did update:

https://www.eclectic-ware.com/lenape-bath-hardware.html

Pages not updating are in the Map one level below that page.

I am going to test some changes on other pages in the map at various levels and see if I can find a pattern.

After restarting the program again after its second crash, I went to one of the problem pages, hit preview, and it was still the same. Went back on the page, just added a couple of asteriks to the opening text, hit preview, and suddenly that took. Went to another page that was being a pighead, previewed it, still the old content. Changed a spec of text on it, previewed it, that text took. Went through several other pages, some I had to trick with new text, some showed my changes from yesterday.

Doing an upload to the server right now. Will look at the results.

Well, Mystery widens. Some pages uploaded new data, I had to hit refresh to see it when normally it automatically refreshes. And some did not. For one that did not, I went back to the software, just went to that page, did a preview, and the preview was correct with new data. Yet when I uploaded to the server, that page did not update. So it seems about half of them updated and half did not. Still means that is a bug in the X5 software.

So, I will add another word or two to the pages that seem reluctant to upload properly, re-upload again, and test that result. I'll be back.

I used the left Ctrl key and F5 key combination on the linked page and see the change, see screenshot

-----

I just did the upload. Many pages I had to refresh manually, but all in that section seemed to have updated the new data now. Why it took so many tries and why the software was resisting is something I hope an Incomedia employee jumps into this conversation to explain.

I have never encountered this difficultly with the software previous to now.

Any way to get a tech to jump in this conversation to offer a perspective on why the software is acting up?

Just test another page in another section of my site, a level down in the tree, and a simple text update did preview correctly.

Problems like this usually do not just self correct. So it still leaves me questioning if something is wrong in the software.

During holidays and Sundays (possibly Saturday?) the Incomedia employees are not online in the community, otherwise they are online during office hours in Italy and can help.

Hope one of them chimes in next week.

Hello John,
I am sorry about the issues.
We have not had common reports about this recently, so I would rule out a general bug in WebSite X5.
Factors such as antivirus/firewall systems imposing restrictions when the software is attempting to regenerate the files to update them because of new changes can lead to similar behaviors, do you notice any difference if you run WebSite X5 with these disabled, or by making sure the software is marked as an exception?

If you still have any pages affected by this, you can provide me with a copy of the project and information on which page it is, so that I can attempt to reproduce this.

I will look into the "mark as exception" thing. I use Webroot Security Suite. Have done so for over 10 years. It is non-intrusive, but always watching. It has had no conflicts with X5 in the past and it has never objected to your browser (preview) window.

The mystery is that it allowed pages higher in the tree to respond just fine, but those under that level did not. This is why I felt the software was acting up.

Other things I have noticed in the software are: When double-clicking an existing text block element to update it, most respond immediately and populate the text in the editing window. I have encountered a few, the same text blocks multiple times, not wanting to populate the window. I have had to delete some text blocks and re-create them. And this is a new problem too. Just noticing it now.

I have not made any significant changes to the data file. Have not been adding pages. If anything, I have deleted many old part numbers making my file just a tinge smaller. So it is very weird that this just occurred.

Eric, I just discovered something new about this today. If I go into the software and change something on a product card, such as quantity in stock. Anything in the text description, then then choose to upload the page with the setting of upload only pages with changes since.... Well, it is not updating that data on the host server. Or in the preview window of the software itself.

BUT, if I change something on the page itself, even something as small as just adding a period in a text block, then it uploads the changes to that page and updates the cart item on the page too.

So when I go through and change a bunch of quantities in my product card items, but if I change nothing on the page they post on, they do NOT update. If I alter the page in some way, they do update. So X5 is possibly not updating the data file for the product cards unless a page demands it???

Does that help figure out this mystery?

Hello John,
is this also noticeable in preview mode?
So for example, if you update the quantity of a product and then go to a page with a Product Catalog with that product (if this is what you tried), when launching either the regular preview or CTRL + preview, the quantity displayed does not match the recent change?

Additionally, where you able to check the situation with the antivirus disabled or the software marked as an exception for it?
I remain available.

I just went into the software and changed data on two product cards. And I made sure not to change anything on the page itself where the product cards are shown. In the normal preview mode, it showed the updates correctly. So I was not able to do the CTRL+preview to test that since it behaved normally. And when I uploaded to the host, those two changes updated correctly.

Thus, the ghost in the machine. It knows we are watching and testing it, thus it chose not to act up this morning.

Nothing really makes it easy to find the solution to a problem. I will continue to monitor it. Doubt that it just self corrected like that and will continue. Unless it is some sort of .dll file or any shared file that might had been misbehaving before. Windows can sometime be a headache. I am running Win 11 now for many months so far.