When trying to start a site lately I get “Unable to start site” error.
If I Force Quit to restart Local I can then start the site, but then try starting another site and it might happen again. It is also not specific to a singular site
Steps to reproduce
I do not know how someone else to reproduce?
I will say, I am using a M1 Mac Mini and my sites are on an external SSD over Thunderbolt/USB4
Environment Info
Describe your environment.
What Operating System are you using? Mac Tahoe 26.3
What versions of site software (Nginx, Apache, PHP, MySQL) is used?
What version of Local is installed? Version 9.2.9+6887
Hey @jon_stormbox! I requested this in your other post as well but could you share your complete log here for us? It will be under the Support tab in Local, if you scroll down a little you’ll see a Download widget that bundles everything into a zip. Keep us posted and we’d be happy to help further!
Also will add, this setup has been the same for 3 years and this issue has only been the last ~2 months. I raised a ticket around storing temp files on WPE a while back and that update I know was working without issues, so I am hoping it has been triggered by either a OS or Local update
I’m seeing a lot of errors in your logs referencing potential Port Conflicts:
2026/02/12 16:30:40 [emerg] 3706#0: bind() to [::]:443 failed (48: Address already in use)
2026/02/12 16:30:40 [emerg] 3706#0: still could not bind()
2026/02/12 16:30:43 [emerg] 3711#0: bind() to 0.0.0.0:80 failed (48: Address already in use)
2026/02/12 16:30:43 [emerg] 3711#0: bind() to [::]:80 failed (48: Address already in use)
2026/02/12 16:30:43 [emerg] 3711#0: bind() to 0.0.0.0:443 failed (48: Address already in use)
2026/02/12 16:30:43 [emerg] 3711#0: bind() to [::]:443 failed (48: Address already in use)
{"class":"Process","level":"warn","message":"2026-02-17T00:09:15.497178Z 0 [ERROR] [MY-010259] [Server] Another process with pid 1737 is using unix socket file.","process":"mysql","thread":"main","timestamp":"2026-02-17T00:09:15.497Z"}
{"class":"Process","level":"warn","message":"2026-02-17T00:09:15.497188Z 0 [ERROR] [MY-010268] [Server] Unable to setup unix socket lock file.","process":"mysql","thread":"main","timestamp":"2026-02-17T00:09:15.497Z"}
{"class":"Process","level":"warn","message":"2026-02-17T00:09:15.497193Z 0 [ERROR] [MY-010119] [Server] Aborting","process":"mysql","thread":"main","timestamp":"2026-02-17T00:09:15.497Z"}
{"level":"info","message":"Database connection attempt 3 over socket","service":"mysql","serviceBinVersion":"8.0.35","thread":"main","timestamp":"2026-02-17T00:09:16.216Z"}
{"error":"Command failed: %%userDataPath%%/lightning-services/mysql-8.0.35+4/bin/darwin-arm64/bin/mysqladmin ping\n\u0007mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed\nerror: 'Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '%%site.runData%%/mysql/mysqld.sock' (61)'\nCheck that mysqld is running and that the socket: '%%site.runData%%/mysql/mysqld.sock' exists!\n","level":"debug","message":"Connection failed over
Is there anything that could be interfering with Local like another dev application? Would you be able to work in Localhost if you tried changing your Router Mode?
This issue has been tough to nail down. It’s possible that your sites.json has been corrupted, but there might also be something strange happening within the workflow of using the external drive as well. I did some searching and found a similar topic and issue from you back in 2024.
Might be time to ditch Local, only used it seems the company I work for use WPE and do not do Bitbucket pipelines. Might switch back to Valet and just FTP sites
We understand doing what is best for your needs and workflows @jon_stormbox and appreciate you sticking with it this far.
If you’d still like to try resolving this error, it looks like some of the files that Local uses to store site information might have become corrupted, in particular, the sites.json and sites-organization.json files.
You can try to restore and repair those files using this process:
Quit Local if it’s running
Open the MacOS Finder.
Choose Go → Go To Folder
Paste ~/Library/Application Support/Local and press Enter
sites-organization.json and sites.json will appear in that folder.
Rename the sites-organization.json file to sites-organization-old.json and sites.json to sites-old.json
Yes @jon_stormbox you might see a blank site list and then have to reimport them manually, but the files should still be available.
If the issue only arose within the last few months, you could also try downgrading your Local version as another workaround. For example, v9.2.5 came out July 2025 which you could grab here:
Or you could pick a different release from that page. Here are instructions for downgrading:
