Chrome app cache doesn't work on first load, only on refresh

Question

Our offline app works great in Firefox, but over the past month or two it's had various problems in all recent version of Chrome and Chromium. This is the latest issue I'm seeing in Chromium 23.0.1271.97 in Linux. Also confirmed in similar version of Chrome on Windows 7.

When I go to the offline app "cold" (with nothing in chrome://appcache-internals/), nothing happens. I have callbacks attached to all ApplicationCache events, and none of them fire. Nothing is added to chrome://appcache-internals/. There are no errors in the console, network console, etc. Neither Chrome or the server logs show the cache manifest file is being requested.

When I reload the page, it all works. And it keeps working - even across cache manifest file changes - until I go to chrome://appcache-internals/ and delete the cache. Then it all starts again.

I and others have verified these exact steps dozens of times across operating systems, servers, http/https, and recent Chrome/Chromium versions. Obviously it's one of Chrome's many cache bugs. I'm hoping to find a workaround.

It really looks like this unconfirmed Chrome bug: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?can=2&start=0&num=100&q=&colspec=ID%20Pri%20Mstone%20ReleaseBlock%20OS%20Area%20Feature%20Status%20Owner%20Summary&groupby=&sort=&id=116382

Answer 1

As the Chromium issue above stated, the problem was cause by the fact the appcache page was reached via redirect. As a workaround, I POST'd the data I needed over ajax, then used window.location = "/bla/bla" to navigate to the appcache page.

Not ideal, but users can't tell a difference (except that it works...).