Why Your Mobile Site Still Shows Old Images After an Update

It is a familiar support case: you upload a new image, refresh the desktop browser, and everything looks correct. Then you open the same page on a phone and the old image is still there. In Evolution CMS this usually means one of the caching layers is holding on to the previous asset, not that the upload itself failed.

Check the obvious cache layers first

• Clear the Evolution CMS cache in the manager.
• If you use generated thumbnails, remove stale files from the thumbnail cache directory.
• Check whether Cloudflare, Nginx, Apache, or a hosting proxy is serving an older image.
• Test in a private browser session on the phone to rule out aggressive mobile browser cache.

Why mobile devices often show the old file longer

Desktop and mobile browsers may cache images differently. Mobile browsers are especially aggressive when the image URL does not change. If the page still points to the same file name, for example /assets/images/banner.jpg, the phone may decide it already has the correct version and keep serving it from local storage.

Safer ways to publish updated images

The most reliable fix is to make the image URL change whenever the file changes. You can do that in several ways:

• rename the file, for example banner-2021-01-18.jpg
• append a version query string such as ?v=20210118
• generate image URLs from a TV or field that you can update together with the content

What to review in Evolution CMS

• template output that builds the image URL
• plugins or snippets that resize images and save them into cache folders
• CDN or reverse-proxy headers such as Cache-Control and Expires
• whether the manager upload replaced the old file in place instead of generating a new file name

Recommended publishing workflow

For important visual assets such as hero banners, campaign graphics, and category thumbnails, treat the URL as versioned content. That keeps mobile and desktop visitors aligned and avoids the “works on my laptop but not on my phone” situation.

<img src="/assets/images/banner-20210118.jpg" alt="Updated banner">

If you cannot rename the file, change the query string at the same time you upload the new image:

<img src="/assets/images/banner.jpg?v=20210118" alt="Updated banner">

This is a small operational habit, but it prevents a surprising amount of support work.