Expression Web Publishing Conflict Problem - Solved!

After much research on the Internet to resolve the annoying file conflict problem, I could not get any of the suggested solutions to work for me. Emptying the  <user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WebsiteCache folder did not fix the problem. Running all the options on the FPCleaner program did not fix the problem.

Here is a description of the problem: The issue is actually twofold. First, when you view the local and remote file lists, you see that "Conflict" and the "?" icon are displayed for the affected files. Second, often the file size for the affected files will show a 0 Bytes on the local machine (doing an F5 refresh cures that temporarily). When the system is functioning properly, selecting the Conflict files and hitting the Synchronize double arrows, then choosing to Overwrite Remote Files clears the problem. Not so for me.

Every time I changed a file, it lost synchronization with the remote file and it would get published every time any other file was published. It got to the point that more than 100 files were publishing every time I only actually changed one file. Not acceptable.

Expression Web File Conflict Screen

(Note: Here is another possible solution provided by Mr. Had Robinson)

Finally, I looked at the files in the _vti_cnf folders (not visible in Expression Web - use Windows Explorer with ability to view hidden files). When compared with a website that was functioning properly, I noticed that the timestamps were not correct, so that told me somehow Expression Web was not properly updating those files when publishing. So, I ran an experiment.

I Zipped up the entire _vti_cnf folder for one of the affected file locations, then deleted all the files in the _vti_cnf folder (not the folder itself!). Then I did a refresh (F5 does the trick), and look to find that Expression Web restored all the files. Then, I selected the Conflict files again and published them to the remote server. This time, the Conflict went away and did not come back!!!

Problem Solved!!!

What caused the problem in the first place? Who knows? After all, this is Microsoft Express Web, where anything can (or can't) happen.

So, if you find this page after (or hopefully before) finding the other pages that do not really fix the problem, give this a try.

!!! -- WARNING -- !!! Before trying this solution, be sure to back up your entire website just in case something goes wrong and this does not work for you. It's all too easy to make an errant keystroke and trash the entire site.