🔍 Overview
When you import a multi-page website into Website Studio, the imported site's header navigation — including dropdown menus — may not render correctly. You may also encounter build failures or HTTP 403 errors when attempting to fix these issues using the AI agent or an external editor via the Search Atlas MCP (SA MCP). This article explains why these issues occur and the steps you can take to resolve them.
⚠️ What You Might Experience
- Header dropdown menus are missing or unresponsive after import.
- AI agent prompts inside Website Studio fail to repair the navigation.
- Editing via Claude with SA MCP results in build failures.
- HTTP 403 (Forbidden) errors appear during build or save attempts.
- Certain pages are not listed under their expected parent menu items.
💡 Why This Happens
Website Studio processes imported sites by parsing their HTML and assets. During this process, complex header and footer components — especially those with nested dropdown structures — may not be fully fetched or rendered. This is a known limitation when importing ZIP or HTML-based projects. Additionally, if the project's structure is partially broken after import, the AI agent and external MCP connections may lack the permissions or clean state needed to apply fixes, resulting in 403 errors and failed builds.
🛠️ Step-by-Step: How to Fix the Issue
- Open Website Studio. In the left sidebar, click Website Studio (URL:
/website-studio) to open your project list. - Open the affected imported project. Select the site that has the broken header navigation.
- Manually rebuild the header navigation block. Instead of relying on the imported header, delete the broken header component and replace it with a fresh navigation block from the Website Studio component library. Recreate your dropdown menu items manually using the available menu and submenu components.
- Re-add your pages to the navigation. Ensure each page in your site is explicitly linked inside the new navigation component. Dropdown items pointing to internal pages must be set using the page slug (for example,
/products/metal-buildings) rather than a full external URL. - Test the dropdown menus. Use the Preview mode to confirm that all parent menu items expand correctly and that nested pages are reachable.
- Avoid using SA MCP on a broken project state. If the project contains build errors, resolve them inside Website Studio first before connecting an external editor. Attempting MCP edits on a broken project can trigger 403 permission errors because the build pipeline rejects changes to an invalid project state.
- Re-import only if necessary. If the project is too broken to repair in place, use Import Site again from the Website Studio dashboard to start a clean import. Before importing, simplify the source HTML — remove any JavaScript-driven mega-menus and replace them with standard anchor-based dropdowns to improve import compatibility.
✅ Best Practices for Importing Sites
- Before importing, simplify complex navigation: replace JavaScript-rendered dropdowns with standard HTML anchor lists where possible.
- After any import, immediately preview the header and footer to catch rendering issues early.
- Build and verify the site inside Website Studio before connecting SA MCP for external edits.
- Keep page slugs consistent and lowercase with hyphens (e.g.,
/metal-rv-carports) to avoid slug resolution errors in the navigation.
🚧 Known Limitations
- ZIP and HTML imports do not always fully fetch or render header and footer components — these may need to be rebuilt manually.
- The AI agent works best on structurally valid projects; it cannot reliably repair deeply broken navigation structures from a failed import.
- HTTP 403 errors during MCP-assisted builds indicate a project state or permissions issue on the build pipeline, not an error with your MCP configuration itself.
💬 Need More Help?
If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.