Drupal 7 Server or Caching Issue? Not updating CSS Changes - css

Question

So, my Drupal site is not reflecting any CSS changes I make. I've tried doing a hard cache of the site, I've tried multiple browsers, I've checked the actual stylesheet on the server to make sure it's copying over (the stylesheet reflects the changes, but the actual site does not). I've, of course, gone to the clear cache section under configuration/performance on the admin panel. I have gone into the FTP and manually deleted the cache. I have cleared my own browsers' cache. The CSS files are going in the correct folder (I've checked that, too!). I have done literally everything I can think of. I have tried toggling the aggregate & compress css options on and off, clearing the cache in between. I inspected the page source, and it is definitely still presenting with the old CSS.
Every attempt at debugging has led me to believe that this has something to do with the DNS not refreshing. I read somewhere that someone made some kind of changes to the A Name Record. I've set the TTL to 1/2 hr, reset the A Name Record manually, and I removed the forwarding I had on the domain, just in case.
These are the things I have done. People of Stack Overflow, what am I missing? I've scoured the net for a solution, and nobody who's had this problem has found a solution. Has anyone had this problem and fixed it? What did you do? Any ideas?
::edit:: I just wanted to add that I'm using Skeleton Theme as a base.
::edit edit:: I've also used Devel to Rebuild the Theme Registry.

Answer 1

This was cross posted to the distribution's issue queue, but I don't think it has anything to do with the Community Media Starter Kit distribution itself.
First, you should rule out DNS by settings the DNS locally and/or clearing the DNS cache. These are the steps for OSX, but you can find the similar instructions for any OS...
Clearing local DNS cache
Mac OSX Lion DNS lookup order
Once you've determined that the site you are ftp'ing to is the same site, let's look at how the themes are being loaded by the distribution. With any Drupal distribution/install profile, you can override any module or theme included in profiles/[PROFILENAME]/modules or profiles/[PROFILENAME]/themes by placing a new/older/altered version in sites/all/modules or sites/all/themes. When moving modules that use Drupal's registry, you get a WSOD. This often requires using drush rr or manually clearing the cache tables]1 since the WSOD will stop all pages from loading including the Admin > Performance > Clear Cache. It is REALLY unlikely that would be required for a theme.
In this specific distribution, you can also use the CSS Injector module to make CSS changes without having to update the css files themselves. That css is stored in the database, so it will impact the site you are looking at.

Answer 2

Check that the theme .info file is named exactly the same as the theme directory in sites/all/themes/
If not, the theme showed up for me, but the .info file had no effect.
Changed both to be the same, and was confused to see multiple themes available under site appearance, one for each .info file. Activated the other theme and saw the changes. Just name the directory and the .info file exactly the same.
And, of course, clear the cache, turn off ccs aggregation.

Answer 3

I've never used the Skeleton base theme, but Omega has a theme settings under Appearance where you can enable and disable styles per theme. Maybe Skeleton has that same thing?

Answer 4

I am just starting in Drupal, so I may be totally of track with my answer, but I still tell you what I experienced the last days. So I installed Drupal Commerce Kickstart and made a child-theme of kickstart commerce. This I installed. And when I altered the CSS of it and uploaded it through the ftp client it took more than half an hour before the change took effect. So I searched and finally with Firebug I found out that Drupal makes it's own CSS of it and places it in sites/default/files/css. When I looked with Inspector which css file of these I needed to make the change I wanted, it took seconds, after reloading the changed css file in sites/default/files/css, for the change to see happen.
So apparently it takes these css files before the theme css files. Which for me I found stupid. I don't know if that can help you. Anyway I was wondering if creating these files in sites/default/files/css is really necessary. I deleted them for test but they come back. Don't know if there is a possibility to stop that process.

Answer 5

Pagespeed ( a site caching system ) from whois hosting was the cause of this for me. I logged in to the customer's hosting account and shut it off. The problem was resolved, but I also implemented this code, which allowed the theme registry to be rebuilt on every page load, and that made a huge difference.Now css changes are instant. Before the site goes live I will disable this code.
Are you sure you're not meaning to rebuild the theme registry instead?
To rebuild the theme registry and the theme .info file during development, add this to your theme's template.php file:
<?php
/**
* Auto-rebuild the theme registry during theme development.
*/
if (theme_get_setting('rebuild_registry') && !defined('MAINTENANCE_MODE')) {
// Rebuild .info data.
system_rebuild_theme_data();
// Rebuild theme registry.
drupal_theme_rebuild();
}
?>
And add this to your theme's theme-settings.php within your {themename}_form_system_theme_settings_alter(&$form, $form_state) function:
<?php
$form['rebuild_registry'] = array(
'#type' => 'checkbox',
'#title' => t('Rebuild theme registry on every page.'),
'#default_value' => theme_get_setting('rebuild_registry'),
'#description' => t('During theme development, it can be very useful to continuously rebuild the theme registry. WARNING: this is a huge performance penalty and must be turned off on production websites.', array('!link' => 'http://drupal.org/node/173880#theme-registry')),
);
?>