How to prevent Browser cache on Angular 2 site?

Question

We\'re currently working on a new project with regular updates that\'s being used daily by one of our clients. This project is being developed using angular 2 and we\'re fac

Answer 1

I had similar issue with the index.html being cached by the browser or more tricky by middle cdn/proxies (F5 will not help you).

I looked for a solution which verifies 100% that the client has the latest index.html version, luckily I found this solution by Henrik Peinar:

https://blog.nodeswat.com/automagic-reload-for-clients-after-deploy-with-angular-4-8440c9fdd96c

The solution solve also the case where the client stays with the browser open for days, the client checks for updates on intervals and reload if newer version deployd.

The solution is a bit tricky but works like a charm:

• use the fact that ng cli -- prod produces hashed files with one of them called main.[hash].js
• create a version.json file that contains that hash
• create an angular service VersionCheckService that checks version.json and reload if needed.
• Note that a js script running after deployment creates for you both version.json and replace the hash in angular service, so no manual work needed, but running post-build.js

Since Henrik Peinar solution was for angular 4, there were minor changes, I place also the fixed scripts here:

VersionCheckService :

import { Injectable } from '@angular/core';
import { HttpClient } from '@angular/common/http';

@Injectable()
export class VersionCheckService {
    // this will be replaced by actual hash post-build.js
    private currentHash = '{{POST_BUILD_ENTERS_HASH_HERE}}';

    constructor(private http: HttpClient) {}

    /**
     * Checks in every set frequency the version of frontend application
     * @param url
     * @param {number} frequency - in milliseconds, defaults to 30 minutes
     */
    public initVersionCheck(url, frequency = 1000 * 60 * 30) {
        //check for first time
        this.checkVersion(url); 

        setInterval(() => {
            this.checkVersion(url);
        }, frequency);
    }

    /**
     * Will do the call and check if the hash has changed or not
     * @param url
     */
    private checkVersion(url) {
        // timestamp these requests to invalidate caches
        this.http.get(url + '?t=' + new Date().getTime())
            .subscribe(
                (response: any) => {
                    const hash = response.hash;
                    const hashChanged = this.hasHashChanged(this.currentHash, hash);

                    // If new version, do something
                    if (hashChanged) {
                        // ENTER YOUR CODE TO DO SOMETHING UPON VERSION CHANGE
                        // for an example: location.reload();
                        // or to ensure cdn miss: window.location.replace(window.location.href + '?rand=' + Math.random());
                    }
                    // store the new hash so we wouldn't trigger versionChange again
                    // only necessary in case you did not force refresh
                    this.currentHash = hash;
                },
                (err) => {
                    console.error(err, 'Could not get version');
                }
            );
    }

    /**
     * Checks if hash has changed.
     * This file has the JS hash, if it is a different one than in the version.json
     * we are dealing with version change
     * @param currentHash
     * @param newHash
     * @returns {boolean}
     */
    private hasHashChanged(currentHash, newHash) {
        if (!currentHash || currentHash === '{{POST_BUILD_ENTERS_HASH_HERE}}') {
            return false;
        }

        return currentHash !== newHash;
    }
}

change to main AppComponent:

@Component({
    selector: 'app-root',
    templateUrl: './app.component.html',
    styleUrls: ['./app.component.css']
})
export class AppComponent implements OnInit {
    constructor(private versionCheckService: VersionCheckService) {

    }

    ngOnInit() {
        console.log('AppComponent.ngOnInit() environment.versionCheckUrl=' + environment.versionCheckUrl);
        if (environment.versionCheckUrl) {
            this.versionCheckService.initVersionCheck(environment.versionCheckUrl);
        }
    }

}

The post-build script that makes the magic, post-build.js:

const path = require('path');
const fs = require('fs');
const util = require('util');

// get application version from package.json
const appVersion = require('../package.json').version;

// promisify core API's
const readDir = util.promisify(fs.readdir);
const writeFile = util.promisify(fs.writeFile);
const readFile = util.promisify(fs.readFile);

console.log('\nRunning post-build tasks');

// our version.json will be in the dist folder
const versionFilePath = path.join(__dirname + '/../dist/version.json');

let mainHash = '';
let mainBundleFile = '';

// RegExp to find main.bundle.js, even if it doesn't include a hash in it's name (dev build)
let mainBundleRegexp = /^main.?([a-z0-9]*)?.js$/;

// read the dist folder files and find the one we're looking for
readDir(path.join(__dirname, '../dist/'))
  .then(files => {
    mainBundleFile = files.find(f => mainBundleRegexp.test(f));

    if (mainBundleFile) {
      let matchHash = mainBundleFile.match(mainBundleRegexp);

      // if it has a hash in it's name, mark it down
      if (matchHash.length > 1 && !!matchHash[1]) {
        mainHash = matchHash[1];
      }
    }

    console.log(`Writing version and hash to ${versionFilePath}`);

    // write current version and hash into the version.json file
    const src = `{"version": "${appVersion}", "hash": "${mainHash}"}`;
    return writeFile(versionFilePath, src);
  }).then(() => {
    // main bundle file not found, dev build?
    if (!mainBundleFile) {
      return;
    }

    console.log(`Replacing hash in the ${mainBundleFile}`);

    // replace hash placeholder in our main.js file so the code knows it's current hash
    const mainFilepath = path.join(__dirname, '../dist/', mainBundleFile);
    return readFile(mainFilepath, 'utf8')
      .then(mainFileData => {
        const replacedFile = mainFileData.replace('{{POST_BUILD_ENTERS_HASH_HERE}}', mainHash);
        return writeFile(mainFilepath, replacedFile);
      });
  }).catch(err => {
    console.log('Error with post build:', err);
  });

simply place the script in (new) build folder run the script using node ./build/post-build.js after building dist folder using ng build --prod