Why phpThumb Cache Image Folders Keep Reappearing in Evolution CMS

Many Evolution CMS site owners eventually notice that folders inside /assets/cache/images/ keep reappearing even after the cache was cleared. It can look like a cleanup bug, but in many cases it is simply how image generation works when phpThumb is allowed to rebuild derivatives on demand.

Those folders are usually recreated because the site still needs cached thumbnails, resized previews, or transformed image variants. If the source images are active and the templates still request those variants, the cache directory will fill again immediately after the next frontend visit.

The real troubleshooting questions are:

• are old directories being recreated because current templates still reference them;
• is the cache growing without limits because of too many unique resize combinations;
• or is there a broken cleanup routine leaving dead variants behind forever.

On larger projects, the fix is rarely “delete the folder harder”. The better fix is to standardize image presets, avoid arbitrary resize parameters, and keep frontend markup from generating endless unique thumbnail paths.

So if the folder comes back after cache clear, that alone is not a bug. It becomes a problem only when the cache is unbounded, inconsistent, or generated by accidental variation in template calls.