I have a web page which uses in PHP and a jQuery DataTable to show data from a database.
When I enter the URL and hit enter, the page loads instantly, and I can do this repeatedly and the page keeps loading instantly.
However, when I hit F5, the page goes blank and hangs, it is trying to load the page but is just too slow.
What would be causing this?
Have you actually confirmed your page is really being reloaded?
Most of the time, hitting enter in the address bar if you're already on the page, will merely cause the browser to load it from its cache. Pressing F5 or reload on the other hand would cause the actual round-trip to the server.
Probably, the page isn't reloaded just by foucsing the address input and pressing enter. If you append some random querystring charaters to your URL you'll force the page to reload. E.g. if your url is http://www.google.com you type http://www.google.com/?randomchars123456etc Then your page will be reloaded and that will probably take as much time as hitting F5
Edit: Don't forget the ? or an & if there already is an ? in your url
When you hit enter, browser loads from cache jquery and other large scripts (but still loading the web page from the net), when you press F5 it reloads all the contents again.