Site Import fails

I have CS3 Dreamweaver on an Apple IMac and paid for my membership simply to get the Site Import Extension. Since installing I get everything but a site import. I have used a couple of site import programs over the years and this is the first time I have had one fail repeatedly to work.

Everything seems to work until it actually goes to activate after receiving all settings. The main configuration window then disappears and I have the Site Import progress tool showing me that nothing is processing. Checking the local folder shows me no collection of pages.

I followed the instructions for deleting the OSX cache--by the way, you have an error in the Common Installation Issued pdf file you provide for Mac OSX that refers erroneously to CS4 for the CS3 instructions.
Dreamweaver CS3 /users/[username]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Dreamweaver CS4 /Configuration/

This SHOULD say "Dreamweaver9" not Dreamweaver CS4.

At any rate, renaming or deleting the dat file did not work when I restarted Dreamweaver. Not even the simplest website and instructing for just 15 pages and leaving off dynamic links, really dumbing it down helped to get one successful start.

I cannot pause or stop the Site Import application. I must shut down Dreamweaver to get access to Site Import on the next restart.

Is this a javascript issue?

In the local folder you specify for the imported files to be saved, there will be a file created called "WAImportLog.txt". Can you please send a copy of this file? It may give a clue to the cause of the problem.

Because Site Import was associated with a reputable company that markets itself well and makes extensions for CS4 I expected a lot and got precious little.

I finally got this working with a trial of CS4. But "working" is really an overstatement.

Site Import was not smart enough to follow partial links to CSS, images, swf files, etc.

No matter how I set it, even helping it out by manually pointing with extra URL addresses to the folder where it should find something it did not or maybe did not even try.

No matter whether I set it for the whole site or five levels deep and it apparently is too dumb to know how to download the same files that a common browser does when it retrieves a website to view. If a web browser can follow those links so should Site Import.

All it knew how to do was find three folders in the same directory and include the htm pages but none of the images, none of the css style sheets...

I went to www.httrack.com and downloaded a free program for my Windows laptop that downloaded immediately, installed immediately, and with using the standard defaults downloaded my entire target site in a minute and found every single image, css style sheet, even a .swf file following full or partial links in the page codes without a problem.

Site Import authors, httrack is available in all kinds of GPL versions for different operating systems. Go take a look at HTTrack for a real lesson on what Site Import ought to be.

That program also immediately made the whole saved site browsable on my desktop and told me if it could not download any files that had not been referred to. Only a bogus js file that was empty.

I am now going to copy my httrack site mirror over to my CS4 trial to take a look.

I AM VERY DISAPPOINTED THAT SITE IMPORT IS JUST NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME!

I'm sorry for your disappointment.


To look into the issue, I will need you to send a copy of the WAImportLog.txt file as i requested in my initial response.

I've never needed to use site import, but I do have a question about it. Is there any way to block people from using this on one of my sites? One site in particular bothers me, my client was worried about forgetting admin passwords and stuff. So he asked me to put a "secret page" (like there is such a thing)with all that info on it....I know it's a bad idea, but that's how he wanted it. I added some security such as robots.txt and htaccess but it still bothers me.

Site Import is a web crawling tool. you cannot prevent it from importing a site.

in your case, as long as this secret page is not linked on any pages within the site, site import will not be able to find it unless the person using site import knows the exact address, then again, if they knew the exact address, they wouldn't need site import to get the information ;)