ASP.NET MVC Page with ResponseCache on action DOES return new content instead of cache - caching

Question

I followed this tutorial (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/performance/caching/response?view=aspnetcore-2.1) to implement ResponseCache on my controller-action.
In short, I added
services.AddResponseCaching(); and app.UseResponseCaching(); in the startup and this tag [ResponseCache( Duration = 30)] on my controller.
Then I added a <h2>#DateTime.Now</h2> in my view and what I expected.... was the same datetime.now for 30 seconds.
But it doesn't, it just shows the new time on every reload (F5).
I made sure my devtools in chrome do not say 'disable cache'.
It's both with and without the chrome devtools open, on my local machine, now trying on a brandnew .net core mvc project.
One thing I noticed (with devtools open) is that the request has this header: Cache-Control: max-age=0. Does this influence the behaviour?
I thought it would mean something because it looks like the request says 'no cache' but that strikes me as weird because I didn't put the header in and I would say the default behaviour of chrome wouldn't be to ignore caches?

Answer 1

A header like Cache-Control: max-age=0 effectively disables all caching. Resources are basically expired as soon as they come off the wire, so they are always fetched. This header originates from the server. The client has nothing to do with it.
Assuming you haven't disabled response caching manually in some way by accident. Then, the most likeliest situation is that you're doing something where the response caching middleware will never cache. The documentation lists the following conditions that must be satisfied before responses will be cached, regardless of what you do:
The request must result in a server response with a 200 (OK) status code.
The request method must be GET or HEAD.
Terminal middleware, such as Static File Middleware, must not process the response prior to the Response Caching Middleware.
The Authorization header must not be present.
Cache-Control header parameters must be valid, and the response must be marked public and not marked private.
The Pragma: no-cache header must not be present if the Cache-Control header isn't present, as the Cache-Control header overrides the Pragma header when present.
The Set-Cookie header must not be present.
Vary header parameters must be valid and not equal to *.
The Content-Length header value (if set) must match the size of the response body.
The IHttpSendFileFeature isn't used.
The response must not be stale as specified by the Expires header and the max-age and s-maxage cache directives.
Response buffering must be successful, and the size of the response must be smaller than the configured or default SizeLimit.
The response must be cacheable according to the RFC 7234 specifications. For example, the no-store directive must not exist in request or response header fields. See Section 3: Storing Responses in Caches of RFC 7234 for details.
However, in such situations, the server should be sending Cache-Control: no-cache, not max-age=0. As a result, I'm leaning towards some misconfiguration somewhere, where you have set this max age value and either forgot or overlooked it.

Answer 2

This is working for me in a 3.1 app to not let F5/Ctrl+F5 or Developer Tools in Firefox or Chrome bypass server cache for a full response.
In startup add this little middleware before UseResponseCaching().
// Middleware that fixes server caching on F5/Reload
app.Use(async (context, next) =>
{
const string cc = "Cache-Control";
if (context.Request.Headers.ContainsKey(cc))
{
context.Request.Headers.Remove(cc);
}
const string pragma = "Pragma";
if (context.Request.Headers.ContainsKey(pragma))
{
context.Request.Headers.Remove(pragma);
}
await next();
});
app.UseResponseCaching();
Haven't noticed any problems...