How to disable caching in Alamofire

Question

When I send a GET request twice with Alamofire I get the same response but I'm expecting a different one. I was wondering if it was because of the cache, and if so I'd like to know how to disable it.

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score 52 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 26 '15 at 15:09

52

You have a few options.

Disabling the URLCache Completely

let manager: Manager = {
    let configuration = NSURLSessionConfiguration.defaultSessionConfiguration()
    configuration.URLCache = nil
    return Manager(configuration: configuration)
}()

Configuring the Request Cache Policy

let manager: Manager = {
    let configuration = NSURLSessionConfiguration.defaultSessionConfiguration()
    configuration.requestCachePolicy = .ReloadIgnoringLocalCacheData
    return Manager(configuration: configuration)
}()

Both approaches should do the trick for you. For more information, I'd suggest reading through the documentation for NSURLSessionConfiguration and NSURLCache. Another great reference is NSHipster article on NSURLCache.

answered Aug 26 '15 at 15:09

cnoon

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8

Where should this code go? In app delegate? Please elaborate. – user3246173 Feb 26 '16 at 18:24
1

@user3246173 see [Alamofire#manager](https://github.com/Alamofire/Alamofire#manager) – He Yifei 何一非 Apr 06 '16 at 15:17
1

Doesn't work for me. And also after reading all content in the attached links I still don't know where to call this code. – Andrej Jul 26 '16 at 10:41
2

At some point "Manager" became "SessionManager" and some other things changed. Swift 3 version: `let manager: SessionManager = { let configuration = URLSessionConfiguration.default configuration.requestCachePolicy = .reloadIgnoringLocalCacheData return SessionManager(configuration: configuration) }()` – snakeoil May 24 '17 at 20:55

Allanah Fowler · Answer 2 · 2017-01-27T02:44:52.713

49

This is what worked for me.

NSURLCache.sharedURLCache().removeAllCachedResponses()

Swift 3

URLCache.shared.removeAllCachedResponses()

edited Jan 27 '17 at 02:44

answered May 19 '16 at 05:55

Allanah Fowler

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I can confirm this works. Calling the above code every time just before I make a network call. – Andrej Jul 26 '16 at 10:43
1

@Andrej instead of that I just called it in the AppDelegate `didFinishLaunchWithOptions` – Venkatesh Chejarla Dec 27 '18 at 12:22

0x384c0 · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-25T08:10:23.793

34

swift 3, alamofire 4

My solution was:

creating extension for Alamofire:

extension Alamofire.SessionManager{
    @discardableResult
    open func requestWithoutCache(
        _ url: URLConvertible,
        method: HTTPMethod = .get,
        parameters: Parameters? = nil,
        encoding: ParameterEncoding = URLEncoding.default,
        headers: HTTPHeaders? = nil)// also you can add URLRequest.CachePolicy here as parameter
        -> DataRequest
    {
        do {
            var urlRequest = try URLRequest(url: url, method: method, headers: headers)
            urlRequest.cachePolicy = .reloadIgnoringCacheData // <<== Cache disabled
            let encodedURLRequest = try encoding.encode(urlRequest, with: parameters)
            return request(encodedURLRequest)
        } catch {
            // TODO: find a better way to handle error
            print(error)
            return request(URLRequest(url: URL(string: "http://example.com/wrong_request")!))
        }
    }
}

and using it:

Alamofire.SessionManager.default
            .requestWithoutCache("https://google.com/").response { response in
                print("Request: \(response.request)")
                print("Response: \(response.response)")
                print("Error: \(response.error)")
        }

edited Dec 25 '17 at 08:10

answered Mar 01 '17 at 10:47

0x384c0

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Agree! Thank you. I've made a requestWithCache function too and now I simply use the proper one. I think this should be included in Alamofire by default – rmvz3 Apr 23 '17 at 00:08
Works like a charm! – Konstantinos Natsios Jun 11 '17 at 09:12
1

This doesn't seem to work for me. Are you sure this prevents reading from cache and not just prevents writing to cache? So if there is still something in cache you'll get that anyway? I'm experiencing caching problems with the iTunes lookup that I use to check if there is a new app version: [https://itunes.apple.com/nl/lookup/?id=1234567890](https://itunes.apple.com/nl/lookup/?id=1234567890). Clearing the cache with removeAllCachedResponses() does work though. – Janneman Jun 30 '17 at 08:48
Can you please help me how to enable cache up to 3 Minutes using Alamofire? – Nikunj Kumbhani Nov 12 '18 at 10:47
Cache lifetime can be set on server side in Cache-Control: max-age=. To find out, how to do same thing using Alamofire, create another question on stackoverflow. – 0x384c0 Nov 16 '18 at 06:16

score 8 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 18 '17 at 13:04

func getImage(url: String, completion: @escaping (UIImage?) -> ()) {

    let urlRequest = URLRequest(url: URL(string: url)!)
    URLCache.shared.removeCachedResponse(for: urlRequest)
    //URLCache.shared.removeAllCachedResponses()

    Alamofire.request(url).responseData { (dataResponse) in
        guard let data = dataResponse.data else {
            return completion(nil)
        }
        completion(UIImage(data: data, scale:1))
    }
}

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 15 '16 at 10:21

2

In Alamofire 4 and Swift 3:

// outside function, inside class
var sessionManager: SessionManager!

func someFunc() {
    let configuration = URLSessionConfiguration.default
    configuration.urlCache = nil
    let sessionManager = Alamofire.SessionManager(configuration: configuration)
    sessionManager.request("http://example.com/get").responseJSON { response in
        // ...
    }
}

answered Dec 15 '16 at 10:21

He Yifei 何一非

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For the comment above: https://github.com/Alamofire/Alamofire/issues/157 – Paul Slm Feb 07 '17 at 17:52
Same as https://stackoverflow.com/a/32230328/5790492 Better update answer than duplicate. – Nike Kov Mar 21 '19 at 13:14

Nagendra Rao · Answer 6 · 2017-11-15T11:25:57.923

2

[This approach doesn't disable caching, it merely makes sure that cached files aren't reused]

An easier way to get past cache problem for a particular call is to just add a random number in the call params.

For Swift 3, you can use, arc4random() to generate a random number.

edited Nov 15 '17 at 11:25

answered Apr 25 '17 at 10:32

Nagendra Rao

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Yes, not a good approach to stop call caching, but a quick way to avoid cached data for a particular call. Useful for testing, obviously not a solution to get rid of caching as each of the call with a random number would still get cached. – Nagendra Rao Jun 27 '17 at 17:02

score 2 · Answer 7 · answered May 21 '18 at 12:33

2

I solved it by doing

configuration.urlCache?.removeAllCachedResponses()

answered May 21 '18 at 12:33

iAnurag

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score 2 · Answer 8 · edited May 18 '21 at 07:43

2

You can try to add cache-control to your headers.

let headers = ["Authorization": "Bearer \(token)",
               "Cache-Control": "no-cache"]

edited May 18 '21 at 07:43

elp

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answered Nov 12 '20 at 12:10

LoraKucher

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score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Mar 06 '19 at 05:12

1

Specifically removing a cached response before firing that request again would be more appropriate like:

let url = "http://google.com"
let urlRequest = URLRequest(url: URL(string: url)!)

URLCache.shared.removeCachedResponse(for: urlRequest)

Alamofire
  .request(urlRequest)
  .responseJSON(completionHandler: { response in
    //handle response
}

answered Mar 06 '19 at 05:12

ardarda

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How is your case is like? – ardarda Sep 02 '19 at 10:20
`urlRequest.cachePolicy = .reloadIgnoringCacheData` worked – Tancrede Chazallet Sep 03 '19 at 14:48

How to disable caching in Alamofire

9 Answers9

Disabling the URLCache Completely

Configuring the Request Cache Policy

Linked

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