Why a page can keep showing the old version after an update

Every node in the mesh is served by its own small worker, which is started the first time something asks for that node and then keeps running. It reads what it needs — the node's type, the compiled code behind that type — once, when it starts, and holds on to it. New content you or anyone else writes still reaches it immediately; that is why editing and chat never need anything special. But a new build of the code behind a node does not, because the worker never looks again.

So an update can be finished everywhere it is measured — built, published, installed, showing in the portal's own version line — and a node whose worker was already running keeps answering exactly as it did before, with nothing anywhere reporting a problem. The remedy is the Recycle action on that node: it stops the worker, and the next visit starts a fresh one that reads everything again.

The new page Stale State Until a Recycle writes this down in one place: what a worker holds on to and what stays live, when the portal offers you a recycle by itself and when it deliberately does not, and — just as important — the cases where a recycle genuinely changes nothing, so a second and a third one are not worth your time.