W3 Total Cache freezes my site and does not display formatting correctly. I have been all over their plugin support and came across this thread…

The question: I see garbage characters instead of the normal web site, what’s going on here?

Their solution: If a theme or it’s files use the call php_flush() or function flush() that will interfere with the plugins normal operation; making the plugin send cached files before essential operations have finished. The flush() call is no longer necessary and should be removed.

My question: I do not know if this is applicable and if so, how do I go about finding this flush function and how do I go about removing it?

If this is not the case, please advise on what you think the issue may be? I really would like for W3 Total Cache to work for me because my page is loading at 11 seconds! That’s crazy!! I’ve put so much work into it and I really do not want to revert back to my old theme.

I’ve deactivated and deleted 3rd party plugins. I’ve added the code to my public_html/.htacess per themeco’s suggestion on the optimization article. I’ve also followed all the steps on TOM’s article on optimization. I’ve smushed and resized all my pictures. I’m waiting on 1 support question in another thread about how to specify image dimensions directly on the html img src but other than that I am at a lost.

I have a CDN and am using Cloudflare. 11 seconds to load my home page is insane. The GT metric tells me my biggest problem is I need to Leverage browser caching. I can’t seem to do that without W3 Total Cache – but I can’t use W3 Total Cache because it freezes my website.

Please help.

First of all I feel that the cache plugin will not make your 11 seconds load time magically to 2 for example.

Maybe you need to check another hosting provider with the same situation of your website and see your results.

Regrading the Flush function we se flush() and wp_cache_flush() function here:

wp-content/themes/x/framework/functions/global/admin/tmg/activation.php

  473                  /** Flush plugins cache so we can make sure that the installed plugins list is always up to date */
  474:                 wp_cache_flush();
  475  
  476                  /** Only activate plugins if the config option is set to true */
  ...
 1782                  if ( TGM_Plugin_Activation::$instance->is_automatic ) {
 1783                      /** Flush plugins cache so we can make sure that the installed plugins list is always up to date */
 1784:                     wp_cache_flush();
 1785  
 1786                      /** Get the installed plugin file and activate it */
 ....
 1803  
 1804                  /** Flush plugins cache so we can make sure that the installed plugins list is always up to date */
 1805:                 wp_cache_flush();
 1806  
 1807                  /** Set install footer strings */
 ....
 2029  
 2030                  /** Flush plugins cache so we can make sure that the installed plugins list is always up to date */
 2031:                 wp_cache_flush();
 2032  
 2033                  /** Display message based on if all plugins are now active or not */
 ....
 2064  
 2065                  wp_ob_end_flush_all();
 2066:                 flush();
 2067  
 2068              }
 ....
 2077  
 2078                  wp_ob_end_flush_all();
 2079:                 flush();
 2080                  $this->i++;
 2081  

But I am no sure how this will help you regarding w3total cache.

Hope it helps.