Fastly Not Caching: Always X-Cache MISS

How to fix it

Try these in order — the most common fix is first.

1. 1. Inspect headers

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   1. Run curl -svo /dev/null www.example.com/index.html and read X-Cache, Age and X-Served-By
   2. Run the same with -H "Fastly-Debug:1" to see Fastly-Debug-Path and Fastly-Debug-TTL; repeat a few times
   3. In Fastly-Debug-TTL, M means the object was not cached
   Did this fix it? Yes No

2. 2. Set a TTL for Fastly

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   1. Have the origin send Surrogate-Control: max-age=86400 (controls Fastly only) or Cache-Control
   2. Request twice and confirm X-Cache: HIT
   Did this fix it? Yes No

3. 3. Use Check Cache sparingly

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   1. Control panel, service, Check Cache, enter the full URL
   2. Each click makes every cache node request your origin, so prefer curl
   Did this fix it? Yes No

Symptoms

Responses always show X-Cache: MISS and traffic keeps hitting your origin.

Why it happens

• No usable TTL on the response (Fastly caches by headers such as Surrogate-Control or Cache-Control)
• Object was not cached at the time of the query
• Different cache nodes hold different content hashes
• The first requests after a purge are MISS by design

This guide also covers

• fastly x-cache miss
• fastly not caching
• fastly cache miss every request
• fastly check cache

Other Fastly errors

• Fastly Error: Unknown Domain
• Fastly 503 Backend Read Error / Connection Timeout
• Fastly Purge Not Working (Old Content Still Served)
• Fastly TLS Certificate Stuck Pending or Not Provisioning
• Fastly Origin TLS Errors: Hostname Mismatch, Unable to Verify Certificate
• Fastly Serves Wrong Content or Denies Requests From Origin (Override Host)
• How to Cancel Fastly Account