What causes players seeing an old version of an exported Construct 3 web game?

The web export's offline caching keeps serving the previous build — the service worker holds cached assets, players' browsers never fetch the update, or a broken cache mixes files from two versions.

How do I catch this when it only happens for some players?

Capture it automatically from the player's device with the full stack trace, the device and OS, the build, and a breadcrumb trail of what they did. That turns a vague complaint into a specific, reproducible issue you can fix without owning the hardware it happens on.

How to Fix Construct 3 Exports Caching Old Versions (Service Worker Update Loop)

Quick answer: Export fresh for each release (new cache version), understand the update lands on the next visit after download, and clear/bypass caches when diagnosing mixed-version breakage.

The web export ships a service worker for offline play, and its cache is why players report 'the update is not there' or weird mixed-version bugs. The mechanics are predictable. Here they are.

How to fix it

1. Know the update rhythm

The worker serves the cached version instantly and downloads the new one in the background — players get the update on the NEXT load; 'refresh twice' is often the whole answer.

2. Re-export per release

Always export the full fresh build and deploy all files together — hand-patching single files into a deployed export desyncs the cache manifest and breaks loading.

3. Diagnose with DevTools

Application > Service Workers > Update/Unregister plus 'Clear site data' reproduces a clean first visit — confirm the new version deploys correctly before blaming the host.

4. Version visibly

Draw a small build number on the title screen — support and testers can then say which version they run, ending 'is it cached?' guessing.

Catching the ones you can't reproduce

The hardest version of this to fix is the one you can't reproduce — it only happens on a player's hardware, OS, driver, or save state, under conditions that simply aren't present on your machine. A report that says “it crashed” or “it froze” gives you nothing to act on, so the bug survives release after release while quietly costing you players.

Automatic error capture closes that gap. Each failure arrives with its full stack trace, the device and OS, the build number, and a breadcrumb trail of what the player did right before it broke, so even a failure you have never seen becomes a specific, reproducible issue. Fold identical failures into one signature ranked by how many players each hits, and your worklist sorts itself worst-first instead of arriving as a stream of vague complaints.

This is where a tool like Bugnet earns its place. Its SDK captures every Construct 3 error automatically with the full stack trace plus device, OS, memory, build, and game-state context, folds duplicates into one grouped issue with an occurrence count, and ties each to the build it first appeared on — so you fix the problem that hurts the most players first and confirm it is gone when its signature disappears from the next release.

The errors you never hear about are the ones quietly costing you players. Visibility turns them into a worklist.