Why Your Next.js ISR Pages Stay Stale for Days Despite a 5-Minute Revalidate
Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) in Next.js does not refresh pages on a fixed timer — it only triggers a rebuild when a user requests a page that has already exceeded its revalidate window. This means low-traffic pages can serve cached content that is days or even weeks old, regardless of how short the revalidate interval is set. A developer running a Next.js site on Vercel discovered detail pages with a 300-second revalidate were showing cached versions over six days old, simply because few users visited them. Response headers such as x-vercel-cache and age can quickly reveal whether a page is stale and how long ago it was last cached. The behavior is by design and works well for high-traffic pages, but can be problematic for content like prices or availability where accuracy is critical.
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