Hugo rebuild does not update public folder

support
1

I have the same kind of problem problem as Hugo server not refreshing with content change - #5 by billthefarmer but not exactly.

All was working fine until seemingly without any reason my local site stopped updating when I’d modify anything (content or template).

In console changes are detected:

Change detected, rebuilding site (#1).
2024-12-19 14:33:07.943 +0100
Template changed /_default/summary.html
Web Server is available at http://localhost:1313/ (bind address 127.0.0.1)
Total in 45 ms

But public folder is not updated according to the “last modified” column of my OS.

If I start Hugo with the --disableFastRender flag, public does get updated, but the web page isn’t automatically refreshed, I must hit F5 to see the changes, which isn’t the usual behavior either.

I started and stopped server multiple times with no effect.

  • hugo version: v0.140.0-3f35721fb2c75a1f7cc5a7a14400b66e73d4b06e+extended linux/amd64 BuildDate=2024-12-17T14:20:55Z VendorInfo=snap:0.140.0
  • Ubuntu 24.04
  • Theme ananke
2

This is called browser/HTTP caching.

You can do either:

  1. Run with the developer console open and the “disable cache” option enabled in Chrome.
  2. Run with hugo server --noHTTPCache
3

Same behavior with noHTTPCache (and I use Firefox). This makes sense because this behavior occurred at the same time as my original problem, and until then the auto-refresh was working fine in the basic config.

4

When you create, update, or delete directory descendants, the modification date of the directory itself does not change. That’s how the file system works.

I just tested the rebuild/refresh behavior by starting with this:

hugo new site foo
cd foo
git init
git submodule add https://github.com/theNewDynamic/gohugo-theme-ananke.git themes/ananke
echo "theme = 'ananke'" >> hugo.toml
hugo server

Then I added and updated content. Everything updates/refreshes as expected with both Chrome and Firefox.

Maybe there’s something here that’s applicable to your setup:
https://gohugo.io/troubleshooting/faq/#why-isnt-hugos-development-server-detecting-file-changes

I tested with:

hugo v0.140.0-3f35721fb2c75a1f7cc5a7a14400b66e73d4b06e+extended linux/amd64 BuildDate=2024-12-17T14:20:55Z VendorInfo=snap:0.140.0