How to disable LiteSpeed server caching
LiteSpeed is the web server we use on all our shared servers instead of the usual Apache, and one of its advantages is a built-in cache that can make a site considerably faster.
Worth knowing before you go any further: LiteSpeed does not cache your site automatically. It caches what it is told to cache. On a WordPress, Joomla or Magento site that instruction comes from the LiteSpeed plug-in - so if you have that plug-in, caching is on, and the plug-in is where you turn it off. If you don't, your pages most likely aren't being cached at all.
Running WordPress
If you are running WordPress, use the WordPress LiteSpeed cache plug-in to turn caching off. Installing a caching plug-in in order to disable caching sounds back to front, but the plug-in is the control panel for LiteSpeed on a WordPress site - it does a great deal more than caching, and it is the only place that can switch the cache off reliably.
In the plug-in, go to Cache and set Enable Cache to OFF. As well as stopping any further caching, this clears out pages that are already cached. To turn caching back on later, set the same option to ON.
Important: if the plug-in is installed, do not use the .htaccess method further down this page. The plug-in sends its own cache-control headers, and LiteSpeed gives those priority over anything set by a rewrite rule - so the .htaccess change would appear to work while your site carried on being cached.
Running Drupal, Joomla, Magento, OpenCart, Prestashop
LiteSpeed provides plug-ins for all of these CMS, you can download the plug-ins directly from LiteSpeed's site. Again, within each plug-in's settings you'll find an option to disable the cache.
Not running a CMS with a LiteSpeed plug-in
LiteSpeed does not cache your pages just because it is the web server. It caches what it has been told to cache - which on a WordPress, Joomla or Magento site is done by the plug-in. If your site has no LiteSpeed plug-in and you have never added caching rules to your
.htaccess yourself, your pages are not being cached, and there is nothing here you need to do.If you have previously added LiteSpeed caching rules by hand, the way to undo that is simply to remove them: open the .htaccess file in your site's folder and delete the block containing CacheEnable, CacheLookup or any Cache-Control rewrite rules you added.
If you are unsure whether anything is caching your site, open a ticket and we will check for you - it is quicker than guessing.
