Purging IE’s SSL Cache
Still working on Freezerburn 2.0, getting alot of help from Kevin. We’ve integrated AJAX Page refreshes so that the webpage updates every 60s or so on it’s own, without requiring a pull page reload. It adds alot to usability and makes it alot friendlier to use, but with our work requirement of CAC SSL authentication, we had problems where if it refreshed once while the system was locked (the CAC card was not available), then the browser session was hosed permanently.
After some experiments we found a hidden IE button labeled “Clear SSL Cache” that would fix it. That’s still not really optimal, since it’s several clicks to get to and just a general pain in the ass. After alot of google’ing, we found the following javascript code snippet:
<script type="text/javascript">
document.execCommand("ClearAuthenticationCache");
</script>
That 1 line of JavaScript will purge the SSL cache. We took that and added it into the “onFailure” of our Ajax refresh, and voila: Problem Solved.
A very rare and unorthodox problem to be sure, but hopefully posting it here will save someone else from our headaches.
