Generated CSS appears stale
Use this guide when saved colors, spacing, typography or component styles appear correctly in the editor but the public site still uses an older design.
Determine the scope
Open the affected URL in a private window and compare another page:
- One page is stale: focus on that page’s save state and page-specific styles.
- One reusable block is stale wherever it appears: update the source block.
- Many pages share the old style: focus on theme-generated assets and site-wide caches.
- Only one device width is wrong: inspect responsive settings before regenerating anything.
Refresh page-specific output
- Edit the affected page and verify the intended design value.
- Confirm that the change belongs to this page rather than a global style or reusable block.
- Click Update even if the builder preview already looks correct.
- Reload the public URL with page caching bypassed or purged.
Saving the page is the supported way to refresh its page-specific styles. Do not modify files in the generated-assets location.
One successful Save Draft or Update should refresh both Page Builder spacing and the page's custom CSS. If the public URL still shows an older result after that single save, continue with cache and scope checks instead of saving the page repeatedly.
Refresh site-wide generated assets
If the outdated style affects several pages:
- Confirm the global setting under Settings → POM Theme and save it.
- Go to Settings → POM Theme → Tools → Compile assets.
- Select Compile CSS and wait for the progress bar to report completion. Use Compile CSS and JavaScript instead when the stale output followed a deployment or migration that affected both asset families.
- Purge WordPress page caching and any CDN or reverse-proxy cache.
- Reload a representative public page in a private window.
Regeneration should follow configuration checks. It reproduces the saved settings; it does not repair a wrong color, selector, template or responsive value.
Rule out browser and markup differences
Compare the same URL, visitor state, language and viewport. A template or permission rule can serve different markup, making correct CSS appear ineffective. Also check whether a more specific page or component setting overrides the global value.
Expected result
The current saved styles load on the affected URL after its owning content and generated assets have been refreshed, with no manual edits to generated files.
If the old design returns
A caching layer is probably restoring older HTML or an older asset URL. Purge each active cache once, from the page outward to the CDN, and record which purge changes the response. Avoid repeated regeneration while the underlying output remains cached.