Incorrect Related Files Showing.

I'm gonna protest the marking of the correct answer here. The automated Process to reset the preferences shown in the linked article did not work. That process did not resolve this issue. 

The linked article also gives the wrong path to both the Site Prefs files and the Preferences files and makes no mention of deleting them manually or the fact that there will likely be more than one. It also fails to mention that the .Library folder is hidden by default which could be confusing to some & leaves them no clue what to do if it is not effective.

The actual solution was as follows: 

1.) Set your finder to show hidden files: https://setapp.com/how-to/show-hidden-files-on-mac

2.) Navigate to:  user/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/  (.Library is a hidden directory)

3.) There may be multiple data folders here with DW version numbers for names such as 18.0 or 19.0 

4.) Copy or move all of these folders to your desktop in case you need any of it later.

5.) Delete or move all of the numbered directories out of the "Common" directory or identify the specific offending directory/file & move or delete it.

     The actual file you want to look at is: 

     user/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/[VersionNumber]/Sites/Site Prefs

     This file contains the configuration data for all of your Dreamweaver sites.

     It can be opened & inspected in a text editor if needed.

6.) Restart

7.) Reconfigure your Dreamweaver site(s) to generate a new "Site Prefs" file

8.) Have a look if you want to see the newly generated Site Prefs file or check its contents.

9.) Test Dreamweaver behavior to see if the problem is resolved.

Having done the automated process many times, with no luck I had to find the offending Site Pref file manually (amongst many), by reading through them looking for references to the the bad location that was causing the problem. I then had to manually trash the whole folder (19.0 in this case) containing the Site Prefs file & re-index all my sites from scratch to stop the problem from reoccurring. 

I looked through the newly regenerated file thoroughly to make sure the info was correct. Since the bad file had a mix of good and bad data I wanted to be sure the problem was not persisting anywhere in the doc even though things seemed ok in Dreamweaver.

The answer marked as correct here provides an unrelated statement about network & cloud drives based on some sort of missunderstanding then links to an article describing a process that did not work & gives bad, misleading info. I appreciate the help & resetting the prefs is obviously a valid suggestion but that answer will not solve this problem.

If this happened on my system it will likely happen on others as well. It could be due to migration from one mac or another, the presence of multiple Dreamweaver versions on the same machine, issues with Adobe cloud or bugs in Dreamweaver itself or something else... all common issues.

It would be better to mark this detailed walk-though as the actual correct answer.

So, with the help of an unrelated post by another user who was trying to restore his lost "Manage Sites" list I was able to find the source of the bad data, purge it & get Dreamweaver to regenerate the offending file without the bad data. 

A "Site Prefs" data file located at: user/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/SomeNumber/Sites/Site Prefs was the culprit.

I could see the wrong file location listed in several places in the file under headers like:

css preprocessors html path for compass=

local expanded dir 1=

css preprocessors images directory for compass=

asset directory=

css preprocessors fonts directory for compass=

local directory=

css preprocessors input directory=

It also had a wrong remote directory listed under:

remote expanded dir 0=

Many other headers were leading to the correct location. About half of them were wrong.

These listings showed the exact location that Dreamweaver was eroneously linking to in the "Related Files" Panel. These are locations from a separate & long-deleted Dreamweaver site that somehow became entangled with this new site no matter how many times I regenerated the site.

What I needed to do was delete the "Site Prefs" file & restart the machine, regenerate the Dreamweaver site & BOOM-FIXED! Months of horror over. for now at least. No idea how or why it happened but if it happens again I know how to fix it.

Could this have something to do with it????

I've added a new experiment to illustrate the issue more simply.

I created a new file, very simple, all static html code,  no php or server-side code of any sort, Just enough page elements to prove that the correct css files are being used in the live preview & the wrong ones in the "Related Files" panel.

I copied this .htm file & changed the file extention to .php. Both versions are on the top level in the local site & in the same location on the remote testing server. Both files are identical other than the file extention. The only related files in this example are static css files & a small .js file all of which are linked with relative locations as shown in the images.

When I open the .htm version Dreamweaver will show the correct related files. When I open the .php version Dreamweaver will show the incorrect related files. In both cases, the live preview, design mode preview & real-time browser preview are all correct & being rendered from the correct related files (css files). In both cases Dreamweavers file browser shows the correct files in the correct location.

Simply changing the file extention to .php causes the Dreamweaver "Related Files" panel to switch from showing the proper, local location for the array of related files to showing a different, incorrect local location for the related files.

Now,  having deleted all of my Dreamweaver sites, In the Mac finder, I've created a new directory, copied all of the files from the  old site to the new directory & set up a new dreamweaver site & testing server from scratch using this entirely new directory. Same result.

The local files & remote testing server files remain completely intact after syncing. Everything previews in every view mode and in the browser just fine but the "related files" panel is still showing me the files from a totally different directory no matther which file within this newly generated site I open. 

The only method that works to display the proper related files is to cycle through the view modes as I explained earlier. The correct files are displayed briefly as the file loads then once the live view is rendered the related files panel switches to displaying the wrong files WHICH ARE DEFINITELY NOT THE FILES BEING USED TO ACTUALLY RENDER THE PREVIEW.

How could/why would the files shown in the "related files" panel not be the files used to render the actual preview shown in the live preview?? Obviously the live preview & real-time browser preview are coming from the remote testing server but those files are fine as are the local files! The "related files"  panel is just showing totally different files that are not in the local site or the remote server. They're just different files from a differnt local directory elsewhere on my hd. 

Something about the live preview mode is invoking this glitch in the "related files" panel thats showing files from a totally different site that happen to have the same file names.

My mac is set for all hidden files to be visible & I don't see any residue of anything in the site directory itself but there must be something somewhere that is associating this site directory or files within with this other site. It seems likely that thes identical file names must have something to do with it.

Given a similar issue with Font Caches in Adobe Illustrator refusing to show updated font versions I'm leaning towards some issue with data that is synced to Adobe cloud, or maybe icloud or some combination therof, perhaps from older versions of Adobe applications that is interfering with expected behaviors.

I really need support from an Adobe Employee.

Strange, I see index.php which a long distance from an html file. Try a real html file with real links to related files and then ask yourself why seeing code will help me find a solution.

In fact, I'll make it even easier for you, I'm out of here, maybe someone else will accomodate you.

If that does not work, I will need to see the code as asked before.

Try renaming the Configuration folder to Configuration-backup and restart Dreamweaver.

If that does not work, I will need to see the code as asked before.

This image might help clarify the issue.

Each time I reset the pref for Dreamweaver I get this message:

I'm suspcious that these old settings could be responsible for this stupborn problem. I've tried to use the option to "upload settings" thinking it might upload mu new settings and overwrite the old but no luck. There does not seem to be a way to purge the old settings or stop Dreamweaver from importing them.

Any Clues?