---
title: req.hash_always_miss
summary: null
url: >-
  https://www.fastly.com/documentation/reference/vcl/variables/client-request/req-hash-always-miss
---

**Type:** BOOL  
**Access:** can be read and set, but not unset

**Available in:** recv

Forces the request to be treated as a cache miss regardless of whether we have a copy of the object in cache.

Setting this in `vcl_recv` differs from `return(pass)` in that [Request collapsing](https://www.fastly.com/documentation/guides/concepts/edge-state/cache/request-collapsing/) is performed when "Always miss" is set, allowing simultaneous requests for the same object to be collapsed into a single request to origin.  In contrast, when using pass mode, request collapsing is disabled.

When enabled, this mode also makes [stale](https://www.fastly.com/documentation/guides/concepts/edge-state/cache/stale/) objects unusable, thereby disabling the effects of the `stale-while-revalidate` and `stale-if-error` `Cache-Control` directives.