Hi,

I mirrored my site with "httrack http://s412202481.onlinehome.us/index.php
-O "/home/reg/websites/QuaaoutMirror2012-07-21-2/"
"+*.s412202481.onlinehome.us/*" -v" and afterwards, whatever I downloaded
seems rto work fine on my PC but as soon as I copy it onto another ftp, it
seems to be messed up. I see it like
http://quaaoutlodge.com.previewdns.com/index.html instead of like:
http://s412202481.onlinehome.us/... What's going on here? How can I get the
page mirrored 1 by 1? I need to get a static copy of this page because my DNS
settings got messed up. Please advise!
Thanks,
Ron

I've had a look, but not with complete success...

Firstly, if you want to view this website offline, then you need to mirror http://s412202481.onlinehome.us AND any image files on external domains that are linked to. But your httrack command only downloads files from the original domain (s412202481.onlinehome.us). Such that any external image content etc. does not get mirrored.

So the --near (-n) option for httrack is useful here. It tells httrack to only mirror html files from the original domain (s412202481.onlinehome.us), whereas all other filetypes on external domains will be downloaded. Indeed, it is good to limit the downloading of html files anyway, elsewise you could end up downloading the whole internet. So, something like...But when I tested the above command, I noticed lots of errors in the hts-log.txt logfile. A lot of image files from an external domain http://quaaoutlodge.com have failed to download...So I added -T30 -R3 options for timeout and retry to my httrack command, to improve reliability. On running httrack yet again, the errors now reduced to 21. But it seems that the server at quaaoutlodge.com is fussy. Indeed, the devs at forum.httrack.com recommend using -T60 -R9 (timeout of 60secs, with 9 retries) for extra reliability, although your mirror can take a lot longer to finish.

But even then, the mirrored page here still doesn't look right. Indeed, when I load the page with firefox, online or offline, it acts as if all the images etc. it wants are present and available. But yet, where is the background? It's as if it isn't even linked to by my mirrored page.

So like you, I'm stumped. But I surmise that some of the webpage's javascript links to the images/backgrounds. And in mirroring, some of the javascript functionality has been lost by httrack. Indeed, the devs at forum.httrack.com admit that httrack's javascript support is patchy, and it can sometimes break javascript-heavy pages. But I really don't know, the reason why isn't obvious yet.

PS: Having grepped further... the missing background jpgs are linked to by one of the many .css files that httrack has mirrored from s412202481.onlinehome.us. Indeed, it looks like httrack gets a number of css files, and then aggregate them all into one file. But in this case, httrack parsed no further links from that css file.

Happy with ur solution... then tick "yes" and mark as Solved!

Hmm, but it's weird, the background is visible on my copy if I open it from my local folder, it only seems to be gone once I copy it to the server...
And even when I open to folder in the browser via ftp : ftp://97.74.215.143/index.html the background is visible just fine... just hhtp:// doesn't wanna do it, why is that? weird...

Is there a better way to mirror a website than with HTrack? Maybe a differet application?

Thank you!
Ron

The ftp link above seems to be password protected :-/

I've heard that wget can do recursive downloads. Pavuk is a lesser-known linux program. And this is a longer list of website rippers for Windows.

But I have mostly stuck with httrack for their support forum and documentation. It is simple enough to mirror a website that uses html directly linked to images etc. But when websites (like s412202481.onlinehome.us) use various types of scripting, then not all programs are equal.

PS: I browsed over to httrack forums, and it appears you have already asked there...From the httrack man pageI think what WHRoeder says sounds about right. If a website's scripting (css and js files) uses simple coding, then httrack can parse it for links. But with complicated scripting, then no. It is a known limitation.

Thanks very much dru8274. I'm impressed by all the research you've done (to find my post in the httrack forum ).
I however have taken a dump with my first attempted command and then filled in the blanks manually. Still working on it but it's coming together...

Thanks very much for all your help! Much appreciated!
Now go and enjoy the rest of your Sunday (if there's any left in your time zone )