AWS cloudfront not updating on update of files in S3 - amazon-web-services

Question

I created a distribution in cloudfront using my files on S3.
It worked fine and all my files were available. But today I updated my files on S3 and tried to access them via Cloudfront, but it still gave old files.
What am I missing ?

Answer 1

Just ran into the same issue. At first I tried updating the cache control to be 0 and max-age=0 for the files in my S3 bucket I updated but that didn't work.
What did work was following the steps from #jpaljasma. Here's the steps with some screen shots.
First go to your AWS CloudFront service.
Then click on the CloudFront distrubition you want to invalidate.
Click on the invalidations tab then click on "Create Invalidation" which is circled in red.
In the "object path" text field, you can list the specific files ie /index.html or just use the wildcard /* to invalidate all. This forces cloudfront to get the latest from everything in your S3 bucket.
Once you filled in the text field click on "Invalidate", after CloudFront finishes invalidating you'll see your changes the next time you go to the web page.
Note: if you want to do it via aws command line interface you can do the following command
aws cloudfront create-invalidation --distribution-id <your distribution id> --paths "/*"
The /* will invalidate everything, replace that with specific files if you only updated a few.
To find the list of cloud front distribution id's you can do this command aws cloudfront list-distributions
Look at these two links for more info on those 2 commands:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/cloudfront/create-invalidation.html
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/cloudfront/list-distributions.html

Answer 2

You should invalidate your objects in CloudFront distribution cache.
Back in the old days you'd have to do it 1 file at a time, now you can do it wildcard, e.g. /images/*
https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2015/05/amazon-cloudfront-makes-it-easier-to-invalidate-multiple-objects/

Answer 3

How to change the Cache-Control max-age via the AWS S3 Console:
Navigate to the file whose Cache-Control you would like to change.
Check the box next to the file name (it will turn blue)
On the top right click Properties
Click Metadata
If you do not see a Key named Cache-Control, then click Add more metadata.
Set the Key to Cache-Control set the Value to max-age=0 (where 0 is the number of seconds you would like the file to remain in the cache). You can replace 0 with whatever you want.

Answer 4

The main advantage of using CloudFront is to get your files from a source (S3 in your case) and store it on edge servers to respond to GET requests faster. CloudFront will not go back to S3 source for each http request.
To have CloudFront serve latest fiels/objects, you have multiple options:
Use CloudFront to Invalidate modified Objects
You can use CloudFront to invalidate one or more files or directories manually or using a trigger. This option have been described in other responses here. More information at Invalidate Multiple Objects in CloudFront. This approach comes handy if you are updating your files infrequently and do not want to impact the performance benefits of cached objects.
Setting object expiration dates on S3 objects
This is now the recommended solution. It is straight forward:
Log in to AWS Management Console
Go into S3 bucket
Select all files
Choose "Actions" drop down from the menu
Select "Change metadata"
In the "Key" field, select "Cache-Control" from the drop down menu.
In the "Value" field, enter "max-age=300" (number of seconds)
Press "Save" button
The default cache value for CloudFront objects is 24 hours. By changing it to a lower value, CloudFront checks with the S3 source to see if a newer version of the object is available in S3.
I use a combination of these two methods to make sure updates are propagated to an edge locations quickly and avoid serving outdated files managed by CloudFront.
AWS however recommends changing the object names by using a version identifier in each file name. If you are using a build command and compiling your files, that option is usually available (as in react npm build command).

Answer 5

For immediate reflection of your changes, you have to invalidate objects in the Cloudfront - Distribution list -> settings -> Invalidations -> Create Invalidation.
This will clear the cache objects and load the latest ones from S3.
If you are updating only one file, you can also invalidate exactly one file.
It will just take few seconds to invalidate objects.
Distribution List -> settings -> Invalidations -> Create Invalidation

Answer 6

I also faced similar issues and found out its really easy to fix in your cloudfront distribution
Step 1.
Login To your AWS account and select your target distribution as shown in the picture below
Step 2.
Select Distribution settings and select behaviour tab
Step 3.
Select Edit and choose option All as per the below image
Step 4.
Save your settings and that's it

Answer 7

I also had this issue and solved it by using versioning (not the same as S3 versioning). Here is a comprehensive link to using versioning with cloudfront
Invalidating Files
In summary:
When you upload a new file or files to your S3 bucket, change the version, and update your links as appropriate. From the documentation the benefit of using versioning vs. invalidating (the other way to do this) is that there is no additional charge for making CloudFront refresh by version changes whereas there is with invalidation. If you have hundreds of files this may be problematic, but its possible that by adding a version to your root directory, or default root object (if applicable) it wouldn't be a problem. In my case, I have an SPA, all I have to do is change the version of my default root object (index.html to index2.html) and it instantly updates on CloudFront.

Answer 8

Thanks tedder42 and Chris Heald
I was able to reduce the cache duration in my origin i.e. s3 object and deliver the files more instantly then what it was by default 24 hours.
for some of my other distribution I also set forward all headers to origin in which cloudfront doesn't cache anything and sends all request to origin.
thanks.

Answer 9

Please refer to this answer this may help you.
What's the difference between Cache-Control: max-age=0 and no-cache?
Adding a variable Cache-Control to 0 in the header to the selected file in S3

Answer 10

How to change the Cache-Control max-age via the AWS S3 Console:
Go to your bucket
Select all files you would like to change (you can select folders as well, it will include all files inside them
Click on the Actions dropdown, then click on Edit Metadata
On the page that will open, click on Add metadata
Set Type to System defined
Set Key to Cache-Control
Set value to 0 (or whatever you would like to set it to)
Click on Save Changes

Answer 11

Invalidate all distribution files:
aws cloudfront create-invalidation --distribution-id <dist-id> --paths "/*"
If you need to remove a file from CloudFront edge caches before it expires docs

Answer 12

The best practice for solving this issue is probably using the Object Version approach.
The invalidation method could solve this problem anyhow but it will bring you some side effects simultaneously. Such as cost increasing if exceeding 1000 times per month, or some object could not be deleted via this method.
Hope the official doc on "Why CloudFront is serving outdated content from Amazon" could help the poor guys.