diff --git a/r2/r2/lib/pages/things.py b/r2/r2/lib/pages/things.py
index bff450921..a13c6bc63 100644
--- a/r2/r2/lib/pages/things.py
+++ b/r2/r2/lib/pages/things.py
@@ -215,7 +215,7 @@ def wrap_links(links, wrapper = default_thing_wrapper(),
                num = None, show_nums = False, nextprev = False,
                num_margin = None, mid_margin = None, **kw):
     links = tup(links)
-    if not all(isinstance(x, str) for x in links):
+    if not all(isinstance(x, basestring) for x in links):
         links = [x._fullname for x in links]
     b = IDBuilder(links, num = num, wrap = wrapper, **kw)
     l = listing_cls(b, nextprev = nextprev, show_nums = show_nums)
diff --git a/r2/r2/lib/promote.py b/r2/r2/lib/promote.py
index b33600a6f..6949e640a 100644
--- a/r2/r2/lib/promote.py
+++ b/r2/r2/lib/promote.py
@@ -799,7 +799,7 @@ def get_promotion_list(user, site):
 
 
 def get_promotions_cached(sites):
-    p = get_live_promotions(sites, from_permacache=True)
+    p = get_live_promotions(sites, from_permacache=False)
     if p:
         links, promo_dict = p
         available = {}
diff --git a/r2/r2/models/promo.py b/r2/r2/models/promo.py
index d247911bf..4727bc1d6 100644
--- a/r2/r2/models/promo.py
+++ b/r2/r2/models/promo.py
@@ -188,7 +188,7 @@ class LiveAdWeights(object):
         # Mangling: Caller convention is to use empty string for FRONT_PAGE
         sr_ids = [(sr_id or cls.FRONT_PAGE) for sr_id in sr_ids]
         adweights = sgm(cls.cache, sr_ids, cls._load_multi,
-                        prefix=cls.cache_prefix)
+                        prefix=cls.cache_prefix, stale=True)
         results = {sr_id: cls.from_columns(adweights[sr_id])
                    for sr_id in adweights}
         if cls.FRONT_PAGE in results: