Permissions error after Mac migration / localhost

[ramennoodles]

Hey everyone! The Dropbox app recently moved my Dropbox folder in to the Library and now my web development environment isn't working properly. Whenever I go to my 'localhost', I get error messages. 

The error messages I am receiving are:

- "Forbidden. You don't have permission to access / on this server."  (MAMP 5.3)

- "Forbidden. You don't have permission to access this resource. Server unable to read htaccess file, denying access to be safe." (MAMP 6.8)

My setup:

- I keep my development files on Dropbox

- I use MAMP as a PHP server

- Mac Ventura 13.3

Help! 

[Megan]

Hi @ramennoodles, welcome to our Community! 

After this recent app change, does this error happen with all of your development files in Dropbox?

Could you also attach some screenshots of the error, in order for me to have a visual too?

Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there!

[ramennoodles]

Hey Megan, thanks for looking into this. I directly opened an HTML file from my Dropbox in my browser and it works. However, I can't access the same file through 'localhost'. In MAMP, you can set a default directory, so I've tried updating that to point to other folders with no success. 

Looking again at my environment: Dropbox files (PHP) > MAMP > Safari browser. Perhaps there is something to going on with Dropbox + MAMP settings. 

[Jay]

Hi @ramennoodles. it's possible that MAMP doesn't support the new location, so I'd recommend contacting them for further support on this matter. 

[maxymouse]

I use a tool called MAMP to view websites in development, which I keep in Dropbox, and I've always set the VirtualHost document root to this:

/Users/maxymouse/Dropbox/

That no longer works, so I've been trying other options, but nothing seems to work. E.g.

/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/

/Users/maxymouse/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/

No matter what I do, trying to visit web pages in the browser gives "403 Forbidden: You don't have permission to access this resource."

Am I getting the file path wrong, or are there some permissions I need to set, or is it just impossible to keep these files in Dropbox any more?

Thanks for any help. (Using Mac Ventura 13.3.1)

[maxymouse]

Ah, looks like the same question was asked a few days ago: https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Apps-and-Installations/Permissions-error-after-Mac-migration-localho...

Looks like I'm out of luck. 

[ramennoodles]

I haven't solved it yet; but I am looking into MAMP settings.

I ran an experiment where I installed PHP through Homebrew to test and their web server and localhost is accessible.

[ramennoodles · Accepted solution]

hey @maxymouse, try changing the port setting in the MAMP preferences. I changed mine from 80 to 8080 and it's working?? Speculation: port 80 is being used by something else. Can you try this and see if it works on your end?

[maxymouse]

Thanks very much, @ramennoodles. I played around with it over the week end and also found that I got it working using the default ports (8888). Before that, I moved the files out of Dropbox and still found that port 80 wasn't working, but I doubt I have anything else on this computer that could be using port 80 (it's never been a problem before), so I suspect Apple may have added some restrictions to using port 80, although this sort of thing is way over my head. If ports 8080 and 8888 work, that's good enough for me! (It makes no difference, except that the URLs are a bit uglier. Meh.)

I was wondering if I should bother moving the files back into Dropbox, but your post has at least confirmed that I could definitely do that. I ended up putting them in the Documents folder and using Dropbox Backup, which also serves as a way to back up files. Now I'm wondering if I should bother moving the files back into Dropbox proper, given that they're backed up anyway. 

Anyhow, thanks again for looking into it and posting your findings!

[Walter]

Hey @maxymouse, sorry to jump in here, but are you still having issues with this? 

If so, you can try granting MAMP full disk access permission and if it persists, you might need to reach out to MAMP for further assistance.

In any case, please keep us posted!