The web site or a tool is acting strange

As marvelous a tool as computers and the internet are, they sometimes have some unexpected and unwelcome issues. Some of the most common issues are caused by cookies (bits of information stored on your computer by a website) or by caching. (Cache is the place where your browser stores images, fonts, and a bunch of other technical-sounding things like CSS, HTML, and JavaScript to save bandwidth.) While both cookies and cache work well to make a website both functional and quick loading, they can cause problems if there have been significant changes to the code on the web server. If it has been a week or more since you turned your computer all the way off, these small files and bits of data can actually clog up and confuse the processor.
Fortunately, these can often be fixed by clearing both your browser cookies and cache. The link below has information on how to clear both for a number of popular browsers:

https://zapier.com/blog/what-is-a-cache/

The next step is one we have all used when wrestling recalcitrant electronic devices.
Turn it off and turn it back on. Whether you choose to do a quick restart or a complete shutdown and power up, this gives your device one more chance to get its mind right.

October 6, 2023
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