Old data if request does not have Accept header

[jfbauer432]

I noticed I was getting rather old data (5 days) from https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/LWX/89,86 . When I went to verify in a web browser (firefox) I got current data. After trying a few different things with curl, I happened upon getting current data if I add the Accept header that firefox is adding. Why am I getting old data when I don't specify an Accept header?

curl -o out -i -H 'Pragma: akamai-x-cache-on, akamai-x-get-request-id' https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/LWX/89,86

HTTP/2 200 
server: nginx/1.16.1
content-type: application/geo+json
last-modified: Mon, 14 Sep 2020 20:00:00 GMT
access-control-allow-origin: *
access-control-allow-headers: Feature-Flags
x-request-id: b07e49a0-5304-469c-b3a8-3cb821ac1d4c
x-correlation-id: 84752bc
x-server-id: vm-bldr-nids-apiapp4.ncep.noaa.gov
cache-control: public, max-age=481, s-maxage=3600
expires: Mon, 14 Sep 2020 20:55:58 GMT
date: Mon, 14 Sep 2020 20:47:57 GMT
x-cache: TCP_MEM_HIT from a23-32-17-132.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com (AkamaiGHost/10.1.4-30691244) (-)
x-edge-request-id: 4133d2cd
vary: Accept,Feature-Flags,Accept-Language
strict-transport-security: max-age=31536000 ; includeSubDomains ; preload
x-akamai-request-id: 4133d2cd

{
    "@context": [
        "https://geojson.org/geojson-ld/geojson-context.jsonld",
        {
            "@version": "1.1",
            "wmoUnit": "https://codes.wmo.int/common/unit/",
            "nwsUnit": "https://api.weather.gov/ontology/unit/"
        }
    ],
    "id": "https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/LWX/89,86",
    "type": "Feature",
    "geometry": {
        "type": "Polygon",
        "coordinates": [
            [
                [
                    -77.174759300000005,
                    39.2720743
                ],
                [
                    -77.178502100000003,
                    39.250157899999998
                ],
                [
                    -77.150197200000008,
                    39.247257499999996
                ],
                [
                    -77.146448500000005,
                    39.269173599999995
                ],
                [
                    -77.174759300000005,
                    39.2720743
                ]
            ]
        ]
    },
    "properties": {
        "@id": "https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/LWX/89,86",
        "@type": "wx:Gridpoint",
        "updateTime": "2020-09-09T23:32:44+00:00",
        "validTimes": "2020-09-09T17:00:00+00:00/P7DT8H",
...

And now specifying the Accept header

curl -o out2 -i -H 'Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,/;q=0.8' -H 'Pragma: akamai-x-cache-on, akamai-x-get-request-id' https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/LWX/89,86

HTTP/2 200 
server: nginx/1.16.1
content-type: application/geo+json
last-modified: Mon, 14 Sep 2020 18:30:39 GMT
access-control-allow-origin: *
access-control-allow-headers: Feature-Flags
x-request-id: 4335d8da-f7ef-485e-bf28-3886d1d57381
x-correlation-id: 15be28eb
x-server-id: vm-bldr-nids-apiapp11.ncep.noaa.gov
cache-control: public, max-age=510, s-maxage=3600
expires: Mon, 14 Sep 2020 20:57:26 GMT
date: Mon, 14 Sep 2020 20:48:56 GMT
x-cache: TCP_MEM_HIT from a23-32-17-132.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com (AkamaiGHost/10.1.4-30691244) (-)
x-edge-request-id: 41365cb7
vary: Accept,Feature-Flags,Accept-Language
strict-transport-security: max-age=31536000 ; includeSubDomains ; preload
x-akamai-request-id: 41365cb7

{
    "@context": [
        "https://geojson.org/geojson-ld/geojson-context.jsonld",
        {
            "@version": "1.1",
            "wmoUnit": "https://codes.wmo.int/common/unit/",
            "nwsUnit": "https://api.weather.gov/ontology/unit/"
        }
    ],
    "id": "https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/LWX/89,86",
    "type": "Feature",
    "geometry": {
        "type": "Polygon",
        "coordinates": [
            [
                [
                    -77.174759300000005,
                    39.2720743
                ],
                [
                    -77.178502100000003,
                    39.250157899999998
                ],
                [
                    -77.150197200000008,
                    39.247257499999996
                ],
                [
                    -77.146448500000005,
                    39.269173599999995
                ],
                [
                    -77.174759300000005,
                    39.2720743
                ]
            ]
        ]
    },
    "properties": {
        "@id": "https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/LWX/89,86",
        "@type": "wx:Gridpoint",
        "updateTime": "2020-09-14T18:30:39+00:00",
        "validTimes": "2020-09-14T12:00:00+00:00/P7DT13H",
...

[KTibow]

Probably caching, in server or client.

[jfbauer432]

this has been fine for the past couple of days -- assuming resolved