head is wrecked!! FTP problem ... tech support cannot fix it

jon1981

Hi,

My head is wrecked at this stage. All of a sudden one day i could not retrieve any data from any server during an ftp session. I rang the help desk and they told me i had installed service pack 2 (which i dont remember installing but anyway i let that slide) and that it f**ks up FTP ,Now im not sure if the reason why i could not retrieve data was down to XP service pack 2?

anyway my helpdesk told me to uninstall it, which i did, now im still having the same problem. I have googled this all over the place and still have found no solution...anyone any idea?

lazygit

what program are you using for FTP?
is the FTP server running on one of your PC's that has sp2 installed or is it occuring with every ftp site on the net.

try using the command line ftp see if that works.

jon1981

lazygit wrote:

what program are you using for FTP?
is the FTP server running on one of your PC's that has sp2 installed or is it occuring with every ftp site on the net.

try using the command line ftp see if that works.

sorry i should have said i am using it from the command line. I am ftping towards unix servers

lazygit

well im on XPSP2 and my command line ftp is fine, are you ftp'ing to an ip address or a DNS name? maybe your having trouble reslovling the ip of the server, try a free GUI ftpclient see if that works

Saruman

Firewall??? XP sp2 has a firewall built in.. try turning it off. Also do you have any other firewall software like zonealarm??

Mountjoy Mugger

What error messages were you getting?? Did you manage to connect to the servers?

jon1981

actually i can retrieve data using "core ftp" client ... my apologies, furthermore our support guys cannot connect to my laptop remotely? so it seems ftp session from the command line is causing issues

heres abit of the trace i didnt want to post the server info
ftp -d (server)

230 User ***** logged in.
ftp> ls
---> PORT 10,162,43,141,13,214
200 PORT command successful.
---> NLST

just hangs at this point.

CiaranC

Its a firewall issue. SP2 turns on windows firewall.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=842242

jon1981

CiaranC wrote:

Its a firewall issue. SP2 turns on windows firewall.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=842242

i removed SP 2 and I have turned off all firewalls

viboy

taking a wild stab in the dark.
try turning on passive mode
ftp xxx
user
password
passive (NOTE working from Linux so syntax may be incorrect)
dir

Good luck,
Sean

jon1981

this is all i have to work with , no command line option available

FTP [-v] [-d] [-i] [-n] [-g] [-s:filename] [-a] [-w:windowsize] [-A] [host]

-v Suppresses display of remote server responses.
-n Suppresses auto-login upon initial connection.
-i Turns off interactive prompting during multiple file
transfers.
-d Enables debugging.
-g Disables filename globbing (see GLOB command).
-s:filename Specifies a text file containing FTP commands; the
commands will automatically run after FTP starts.
-a Use any local interface when binding data connection.
-A login as anonymous.
-w:buffersize Overrides the default transfer buffer size of 4096.
host Specifies the host name or IP address of the remote
host to connect to.

Notes:
- mget and mput commands take y/n/q for yes/no/quit.
- Use Control-C to abort commands.

bushy...

Not saying this is it , but looked at a laptop the other day that wouldn't ftp and had a bit more strangeness ( wouldn't ping stuff past x.x.x.180 , netmask was ok ) .
Anyway turned out to be virusburster thing ( effort of a virus that goes "OMG you have virus , go to virusburster to fix it" etc etc )
There was no other sign of a problem , and it wasn't misbehaving all the time.

Snowbat

There is a registry entry that toggles passive ftp:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Ftp\Use PASV (yes|no)

Zirconia

Snowbat wrote:

There is a registry entry that toggles passive ftp:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Ftp\Use PASV (yes|no)

This won't work for FTP.EXE unfortunately, just the Windows GUI native FTP access i.e. Internet Explorer for browsing FTP sites, and FTP folders in "My Network Places". The Microsoft FTP.EXE client just can't do passive mode.

If you need to script the FTP transfer, and it is a passive mode problem, you will need to find an alternative scriptable client.