Local won't show sites and can't create new sites or import sites

What issue or error are you experiencing?

My initial problem was this: Uh oh! Unable to start site

I then tried to make a new site but the Add Site button did nothing.

After that, I changed the Sites path in Preferences from C:\Users\Asus\Local Sites\ to D:\Documents\Local Sites\ and updated Local from version 9.0.3 to 9.0.5.

Now I can’t see any of my sites, though the files still exist in C:\Users\Asus\Local Sites.

I still can’t add a new site, and when I try to import a site, I get a message “Please try again with a compatible ZIP file.”

What can I do to resolve these problems? Local is unusable at the moment.


What steps can be taken to replicate the issue? Feel free to include screenshots, videos, etc

See above.


System Details

  • Local Version: Version 9.0.5+6706

  • Operating System (OS) and OS version: Edition Windows 10 Home
    Version 22H2
    Installed on ‎12/‎08/‎2020
    OS build 19045.4780
    Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.19060.1000.0


Local Logs

Attach your Local Logs here (Help Doc - Retrieving Local’s Log)
local-lightning-verbose.log (939.7 KB)


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.

Sorry that you ran into this, @abrightclearweb.

Please could you try following the steps here?

Hi Nick,

I followed your instructions and I was able to add a new site and import a site. I still have some others to import.

My problem now is that Local won’t start at all. I just get a spinning wheel for a couple of seconds but nothing loads. I’ve attached the log again.

I was running out of space on my C drive but I now have over 4GB free.

I’m not sure what to try next?

local-lightning-verbose.log (981.4 KB)

Thanks for sharing these logs, @abrightclearweb.

They show the sites.json, where Local stores site information, is corrupt:

"level":"error","message":"%%userDataPath%%\\sites.json: Unexpected end of JSON input"

It’s possible this could occur due to low disk space or some other failure to write to disk.

As you have free disk space now, you could try repeating the above steps to reset sites.json and continue importing your sites.

Hi Nick,

I’ve tried that, but Local still won’t start.

local-lightning-verbose.log (1001.3 KB)

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