How to fix “Dynamically-related files could not be resolved” message in Dreamweaver

WordPress is made up of over 70 files which may be called to display your site. Dreamweaver has a handy feature with which it lets you discover all those files.

Sometimes this works great – and sometimes you get the error message above. I was stumped by this when a site I was working on seemingly threw Dreamweaver overnight. Was was going on?

The secret is Permalinks.

Dreamweaver has a problem discovering and resolving related files if you’ve set Permalinks to anything other than the default. This problem has been around for a while, ever since the introduction of this feature in fact.

Here’s a quick and dirty workaround

==> Open your site in Dreamweaver and wait for the message at the top, telling you that there are related files to be discovered. Hit “Discover” and get the error message.

==> Next login to your local WordPress site via a browser and remember what the current Permalinks are set to (under Settings – Permalinks).

==> Choose the Default (first option) and hit save.

==> Go back to Dreamweaver and try the discovery option again. All related files are discovered – hurray!

==> Head back over to your WordPress site and change the Permalinks back to what they were, then hit save.

I know this is a bit hacky, but until Adobe can figure out a working solution this is as good as it gets, and not really that cumbersome.

I’m confused… how do I set this up? When do I discover files?

For this feature to work you need to setup a site in Dreamweaver and declare a Testing Server. You also need MAMP or WAMP Server running on your local system. When you declare your testing server make sure to check the Advanced tab and set it to PHP MySQL.

Now when you open your WordPress site’s root index.php file you’ll get the message to discover related files. Dreamweaver can only discover those by processing all PHP code – and that’s what it needs MAMP / WAMP Server for (just like your browser).

Note that you cannot discover related files on remote sites.