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Troubleshooting Common Issues with LiteSpeed Cache Guest Mode

24 threads Sep 7, 2025 Plugin → Litespeed cache

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LiteSpeed Cache's Guest Mode is a powerful feature designed to serve a highly optimized, static HTML version of your pages to first-time visitors. This can significantly boost performance metrics. However, based on community reports, enabling it can sometimes lead to unexpected behavior. This guide will help you understand and resolve the most common Guest Mode issues.

What is Guest Mode and Why Does It Cause Issues?

Guest Mode works by serving a stripped-down, pre-rendered version of your page to unrecognized visitors. After this initial page loads, it performs a behind-the-scenes check to verify the guest's status and then reloads the page to apply the full, optimized version. This process is why users often report a page reload or flash of unstyled content (FOUC).

Many conflicts arise because Guest Mode is not compatible with other caching systems, including host-level caching, CDN caching (like Hostinger's), or other page caching plugins. Running multiple caching layers simultaneously is a primary cause of problems like infinite loops, blank pages, or layout issues.

Common Guest Mode Problems and Their Solutions

1. Page Reloads or Flashes of Unstyled Content (FOUC)

The Problem: The page quickly reloads after the initial load, or you see a momentary flash where the layout looks broken before snapping into place.

Why It Happens: This is the fundamental design of Guest Mode. The first page is a lightweight placeholder, and the reload applies the full optimization. While intentional, it can be dramatic.

How to Fix It:

  • This behavior is inherent to how Guest Mode operates. If the reload is causing significant issues with other elements on your page (like compliance banners loading twice), you may need to choose between the performance benefits of Guest Mode and disabling it to avoid the reload.
  • For FOUC specifically, try adding your homepage path to the UCSS Exclude list. Go to LiteSpeed Cache > Page Optimization > Tuning > UCSS Exclude URIs and add / (a forward slash). Save changes and purge all caches.

2. Blank Pages or Severely Broken Layouts

The Problem: The mobile or desktop version of the site appears completely blank, shows only HTML code, or has a completely mangled design.

Why It Happens: This is frequently caused by a conflict with another active caching system or a problem with HTML minification within Guest Mode.

How to Fix It:

  • Disable Conflicting Caches: The most common solution is to disable any other caching mechanism (e.g., server-level cache, hostinger CDN cache, or other plugin cache) while Guest Mode is active. You must use only one page caching solution.
  • Disable HTML Minification: You can add the following code to your theme's functions.php file to disable minification specifically for Guest Mode:
    add_filter( 'litespeed_html_min', function( $value ) { return false; } );
  • Exclude the Page: As a last resort, you can exclude the problematic URI from optimization. For the homepage, go to LiteSpeed Cache > Page Optimization > Tuning > Exclude URIs and add ^/$.

3. PageSpeed Insights Errors (SPEEDINDEX_OF_ZERO)

The Problem: Google PageSpeed Insights cannot analyze the page and returns a blank screenshot with a SPEEDINDEX_OF_ZERO error.

Why It Happens: PageSpeed's crawler may be unable to process the JavaScript-based reload that Guest Mode uses.

How to Fix It:

  • Try adding the homepage (/) to the UCSS Exclude URIs list as mentioned above.
  • Ensure Critical CSS is configured correctly.
  • If the issue persists, you may need to temporarily disable Guest Mode for PageSpeed testing, though this means your test won't reflect the guest experience.

4. Lazy Loading on Above-the-Fold Images

The Problem: Images that should be loaded immediately (above-the-fold) are being lazy-loaded when Guest Mode is active, even if they are on an exclusion list.

Why It Happens: Guest Mode applies its own optimization layer, which can sometimes override individual image exclusions.

How to Fix It:

  • Navigate to LiteSpeed Cache > Page Optimization > Media Exclude > Lazyload Image Excludes.
  • Add a unique CSS class or ID for the image(s) you need to exclude from lazy loading. For a logo, you might add logo or site-logo.

5. Infinite Redirect Loop

The Problem: The site gets stuck in a continuous reloading loop, never finishing loading the page.

Why It Happens: This is almost exclusively due to a cache conflict. Guest Mode and another cache are fighting for control over the visitor's session.

How to Fix It:

  • Immediately disable any other caching system (server cache, CDN cache, other plugins).
  • If the problem persists, disable Guest Mode.

Getting Further Help

If you've tried these solutions and your issue remains, the LiteSpeed Cache team often requests a Report Number for deeper diagnostics. You can generate this by going to LiteSpeed Cache > Toolbox > Report and clicking "Send to LiteSpeed". Share the generated 8-character ID when seeking help in community forums.

Remember, caching configurations are highly specific to each site's setup. Isolating the issue by disabling other plugins and caches is a crucial first step in troubleshooting any conflict.

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