Missing top navigation when Varnish is used

When using Varnish, Magento doesn’t render html for some blocks, but inserts the special code instead:

<esi:include src="http://site.com/page_cache/block/esi/blocks/{params}/" />

Varnish should process this code and replace it with actual html every time the page is served for the visitor.

However, in some edge cases it’s not working:

• ESI processing is turned off.
• ESI include tags are generated with HTTPS access protocol, while Varnish only works with HTTP.
• ESI include tags are rendered inside JSON blocks.
• Response headers are too big and Varnish can’t process them.

You can find instructions on how to solve each issue below.

Update Settings

To enable ESI processing, open varnish config file (usually it’s a /etc/varnish/default.vcl), and add the following instruction into vcl_backend_response section:

sub vcl_backend_response {
    ...
    set beresp.do_esi = true;
}

To fix other issues, you need to add additional options to the varnishd startup settings. Depending on your server it may be done in two different ways.

1. Using varnish configuration file /etc/default/varnish

   Note: If systemd is installed, this file is obsolete and ignored. Proceed to the next point in that case.

   Find DAEMON_OPTS config and add the following lines:

   DAEMON_OPTS="-a :80 \
                 -T localhost:6082 \
                 -f /etc/varnish/default.vcl \
                 -S /etc/varnish/secret \
   +             -p feature=+esi_ignore_other_elements \
   +             -p feature=+esi_disable_xml_check \
   +             -p feature=+esi_ignore_https \
   +             -p http_resp_hdr_len=16k \
   +             -p http_resp_size=64k \
   +             -p workspace_backend=64k \
                 -s malloc,256m"
   
   

2. Using systemd drop-in config file:

   Use this approach if systemd is installed only.

   Create /etc/systemd/system/varnish.service.d/customexec.conf with the following content:

   [Service]
   ExecStart=
   ExecStart=/usr/sbin/varnishd -j unix,user=vcache -F \
       -a :80 \
       -T localhost:6082 \
       -f /etc/varnish/default.vcl \
       -S /etc/varnish/secret \
       -p feature=+esi_ignore_other_elements \
       -p feature=+esi_disable_xml_check \
       -p feature=+esi_ignore_https \
       -p http_resp_hdr_len=16k \
       -p http_resp_size=64k \
       -p workspace_backend=64k \
       -s malloc,256m
   

   Save the file and reload systemd configuration:

   sudo systemctl daemon-reload
   

Restart Varnish

sudo service varnish restart

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