Authentication not working

Tips and advice

Check the logs

Check the hts-log.txt and hts-err.txt error log files generated in your project's directory by HTTrack — this may give you important information

Create a small test first

Plan ahead of time. If you know you are going to use authentication, create a small HTTrack project just to test that HTTrack is able to successfully login.

There are a couple of ways to easily do that, and basically you want to exclude all the website's pages/files and just allow the "login" page and the "logged in" page.

For example:
Set the start URL: http://example.com/clients/login.php
Filters: -* +*/clients/welcome.php*

Exclude logout pages

Remember to exclude any "logout" pages on the site you are mirroring! It would be no good if you've made HTTrack authenticate but then it finds the log-out page and ruins your project.

See our help page about Filters. You'll probably use a filter like -*/logout.jsp

Beware cookies.txt

If you reuse an existing project (e.g. update an existing project, or re-run a project when you are trying to get authentication to work) you may experience problems related to cookies.

If you are having trouble making HTTrack authenticate, check for a cookies.txt file in your project's folder and delete it before running the project again.

Learn about other authentication

The site may have a different authentication scheme. Check through our Help information: