Issue with downloading hosted kirby and trying to run locally through MAMP

Kirby 3 Questions 🤔
1

Hey Guys,

New here!

I just purchased a license for KirbyCMS as I loved messing with it on my computer, I’ve run into an issue with my install - I have been trying to download my site to local, update to Kirby 3.8.1 from 3.8.1.1 and was then going to overwrite the hosted files.

I’m trying to download my hosted files and run them locally, but what happens is files download instead, no errors but I get randomly named files or if I try a path like /panel it’ll download a panel file without an extension.

I guess the most basic question on this would be can you download hosted files and run them locally just using folders on your local system?

I have tried running the starterkit locally and it runs fine, then I switch to another folder containing my site files from the server, and nothing loads on localhost.

I did try taking the .htaccess file from the starterkit-main folder and adding that to my downloaded files and I had some success but it seemed no CSS was working.

My plan was to flesh out my site locally and upload it to the server when I have most of it done and then start messing with the build I have of my site locally and see what I can change/enhance/adapt but this issue is kinda putting that on hold.

I’m kinda in the place now where I feel like I’ll draft my writing and my images up locally and just have content in a website folder that worst case I can reuse should anything go wrong with my site.

Here is a loom but the limits on the free account mean the quality is a bit rubbish hopefully it’ll convey the issue I’m having.

Thanks in advance!

2

Hi there, welcome to the forum.

I must admit I only understand half of what you are writing.

What I do understand:

  1. You seem to have a running website on a server
  2. You use some tool like Transmit or Filezilla or SSH to download this project to your computer
  3. You pointed Mamp to this folder so you can run it in the browser as http://localhost

Or did you try to download the files in some other way? How?

3

Hey @texnixe

Thank you for your reply.

So Kirby is installed and working fine on my server, I wanted to also run the same install locally so I can make updates locally or if I wanted to change or try things without messing up the live version and also having a general backup of it.

It’s when I download the files on my server to my computer and try to run the site using MAMP it does not work, instead, it just loads a blank screen and downloads a file.

Can you run a Kirby install locally once it has been hosted?

This might help more?

4

Yes, of course.

What I’m not seeing in your video is if the homepage of the website loads, rather than the panel.

5

Nothing loads, just download blank files so that is the main issue for me, I have tried MAMP and MAMP Pro but still not working.

This was my process

  1. Download the starter kit
  2. Run locally via MAMP
  3. log in to install
  4. Input my license key
  5. Make some changes
  6. Stop MAMP and quit
  7. Upload local files to host
  8. log in to panel
  9. Make changes
  10. Download all files
  11. Try running downloaded files
  12. Fails to load on localhost, the only thing it does is download randomly named files

So not sure what is going on.

As I mentioned in my first post when I use the .htaccess file from the downloaded starter kit zip and use it to replace the one in my downloaded files the site kinda works but not as expected

6

A .htaccess file is definitely needed. Is the CSS the only stuff that doesn’t work when you add that?

Do you know the exact Kirby version that is on your hosting server?

7

Hey,

Version on the server was 3.8.1.1 but I updated the server version to 3.8.2 last night I have not downloaded the updated version of the site though, the one I have locally is taken previus to when I updated.

It looks like all content is there, but the presentation appears to just be missing CSS and probably other stuff. I can login to panel but it also shows as unregistered.

after adding the starterkit .htaccess to the downloaded files I get this

This is how it should look:

8

And I can see panel on localhost but it asks for registration even though my kirbyCMS on my server is licensed (due to starterkit .htaccess replacing the downloaded .htaccess I presume)

9

That’s ok, because the license is registered to a domain, not to your localhost.

As regards your styles, please check the network tab in your browser dev tools to see what’s happening there.

10

Hey @texnixe,

CSS and JS fail to load in:

Also after trying the prcoess of local setting up, uploading and then downloading (as above steps) on the theme I bought and the starter kit I can confirm it looks to be an issue with the theme rather than Kirby so I have reached out to the theme maker and hope they can resolve this issue.

Thanks for everything so far!

Rob