Wordpress : W3 Total cache - Object cache issues

Question

I'm helping friends with their blog, their admin panel is incredibly slow. After testing all the plugins, I saw that W3 Total cache was responsible of this slowness, more precisely the Object cache option. If I disable this option, the admin runs normally, so does the front of the website.

So, why don't I simply disable W3 Total Cache ?

When I do this, some content disapear from the homepage, some text changes...

I'm not sure how Object caching is working, so my question is : Why ? How can I fix this ?

Answer 1

W3 Total Cache tries to speed up the front end of the website by generating and caching HTML responses for each page. As a user requests a page, it is not processed by the bulk of the PHP that makes up wordpress and is quickly served a cached html page.

If the site is large, and the plugin isn't tuned correctly, it can dramatically slow down the admin side (which is run by PHP and not cached by the plugin).

To fix this, you will have to find the right balance on how often certain pages / post types are cached. If the site isn't a busy one, or if speed is not an issue (I can't see how speed wouldn't be an issue but that's an opinion) you are safe to remove the plugin.

W3 Total Cache has some good information on helping someone determine the settings that should be used. Use that info, along with page view stats to figure out your next steps.