Cloning a site in local caused the error in the title to happen on every single site I had in local, about 11 sites in various stages of development. Trying to switch Settings –> Advanced –> Router mode from Site domains to localhost did not help. Restarting system, going back to local, while the sites are still listed in Local, their entire site folders are gone from my Local Sites folder, right-clicking on the site listed in Local to go to site folder does not cause anything to happen.
What steps can be taken to replicate the issue? Feel free to include screenshots, videos, etc
I was pushing a finished site to a live server, not using the Local WP pull/push though as it’s with a different host. Regardless, I cloned the site by right-clicking and selecting “clone site” from within Local WP. As soon as this finished, none of the sites would work and returned the error above. This was yesterday. Today all these sites are gone from my computer, while still listed in Local WP, trying to locate their site folder doesn’t do anything, doesn’t return any errors, it simply allows me to click “go to site folder” and nothing happens.
System Details
Local Version: Version 9.2.7+6877
Operating System (OS) and OS version: 15.6.1 (24G90)
Security Reminder
Local does a pretty good job of scrubbing private info from the logs and the errors it produces, however there’s always the possibility that something private can come through. Because these are public forums, always review the screenshots you are sharing to make sure there isn’t private info like passwords being displayed.
I reviewed your logs and don’t see anything to explain Local removing files after a clone.
Do you store your sites in a custom location, such as a cloud drive or external drive? You can check the expected location from Local preferences at New site defaults → Sites path. If it became detached, that could explain the missing sites. Reconnecting the drive should solve this.
You can also try searching your drives for one of the site folders by name. If you find it, you can restore it by zipping the folder and dragging it into Local:
If there are no longer sites at the path or on your hard drive, you will need to restore them from a backup if you have one.
It would also be worth checking your drive isn’t full or corrupt using disk scanning tools.
Hello Nick and thanks for your response. I’ve been using Local in a Mac environment for about 5-6 years I think, never had this issue before. I’m pretty sure the “Local Sites” folder was created when I first installed Local, as MAMP sites were never in that location. This Local Sites folder was created in my user account on my Mac, no special characters in the name of my user account, just my name, all lowercase and no spaces. The site default is to create new sites in Local Sites, I’ve never changed it or moved it. I’m not sure what you mean by “reconnecting the drive” means in this case, I don’t think it’s relevant though since I’ve never changed any of the Local WP defaults.
So I did a search for one of the site folders, the screenshot attached is the exact same folder, both showing as being in the “Local Sites” folder, but clearly the one on the right which I found by searching, is intact whereas the one that shows up in the Local Sites folder shows almost nothing. What might cause this? I want to add, on the right side I’ve already gone through app–> public to show the folders and files whereas on the left, what you see is what’s there.
I also have 500 GB free disc on my computer, so storage is not an issue.
I’ve seen other people who have experienced this as well, same error code and folders disappearing. I realize this is a free software, but if I’m unable to recover all of my work its simply not worth it to continue with Local, sadly, because it was such a more fun replacement for MAMP.
We have sometimes seen Local’s list of sites getting cleared if Local’s sites.json gets corrupted during disk or power failure, but it’s not usual to see the site folders themselves move as you describe. I’d like to better understand what has happened here and help you to restore these sites.
So I did a search for one of the site folders, the screenshot attached is the exact same folder, both showing as being in the “Local Sites” folder, but clearly the one on the right which I found by searching, is intact whereas the one that shows up in the Local Sites folder shows almost nothing. What might cause this?
It may help us if you can share some extra information:
If you choose Local → Settings, then click “New Site Defaults”, what does the “Sites path” value say? (By default this is “~/Local Sites/”.)
What is the full path of the ‘public’ folder in the right side of your screenshot? It would be interesting to learn where your site is now located instead of the default ~/Local Sites/.
As you have now found the actual site folder, you can restore the site by zipping up the whole site folder (the parent folder of the ‘app’ and ‘logs’ folder), then drag the zip into Local to import it. You may have to give it a new name if you already have a site by that name. More details here:
