I am running Joomla 1.5.4 with VM 1.1, in native mode (no legacy).
In my global configuration I have caching turned ON, gzip compression turned ON, and in my plugins I have the "System - Cache" plugin turned OFF (disabled).
When I turn the System Cache plugin on, it of course caches the pages on my site, but it is also caching the VM cart module. This is strange, because I thought the cache from the global config is what actually cached modules. I have tested it extensively with various combinations of settings, and I can do nothing but conclude that I have to have page caching (i.e. the "System - Cache" plugin) disabled in order to have the cart showing the correct information to the shopper.
Here is an example of what happens to a shopper when the system cache is turned on:
Shopper enters home page, and the cart shows empty (correct).
Shopper browses to product category pages and adds a couple products. They show up in their cart in the VM cart module (correct).
Customer goes back to home page (using same URL as before), but cart shows empty.
Or, if the customer at first adds just one product, then goes to home, it will correctly show the one product in their cart module. If they then go and add a second product and then return to the home page using the same URL (i.e.
http://www.yourdomain.com), it will still only show the one product there ... UNLESS I have the system cache turned off.
I really need the system cache to speed up my site.
Does anyone have advice on this? The VM cart module does not have an option to exclude it from caching, like many modules do, and it does appear to be adversely affected by the Joomla system cache.
I have as I said tested this with the global config's cache off and page caching on, and the problem still happened. Turn system cache off, and the problem disappears. Turning gzip compression on or off made no difference either ... only turning page caching off in the plugins area is what fixed it.
Thanks,
Casper