FTP Receive - errors with passive FTP

patej · Post by **patej** » Thu Feb 27, 2014 11:40 pm

Hi,

I'm struggling with some errors when using FTP Receive. We use it to retrieve some folders with files from our client's FTP site and we can access the site without problems with an FTP client.

However, when I connect to it using the FTP Receive configurator (I use the configurator's Choose folder option so Switch does manage to connect to it), I get an error as if the server does not support passive FTP. However, when I left the flow activated for a longer period, it managed to download some folders once in a while, after which getting back to the error routine. Here is an anonymized sample of the log, where you see that first it got an error, then managed to download a folder, then received errors again, but downloaded another folder later on:

2014-02-27T17:23:03.812Z - Connected to FTP server example.com

2014-02-27T17:23:22.641Z - Checking folder '/Folder' on FTP server 'example.com'

2014-02-27T17:23:24.654Z - Can't get file list from FTP server. Error: The server does not support passive FTP

2014-02-27T17:23:45.663Z - Checking folder '/Folder' on FTP server 'example.com'

2014-02-27T17:23:47.144Z - Can't get file list from FTP server. Error: The server does not support passive FTP

2014-02-27T17:23:47.924Z - Finished downloading folder '/Folder/Subfolder/Folder-to-download'

2014-02-27T17:23:47.999Z - Moved job to folder 'Folder 51'

2014-02-27T17:24:07.732Z - Checking folder '/Folder' on FTP server 'example.com'

2014-02-27T17:25:29.997Z - Can't get directory size from FTP server. Error: The server does not support passive FTP

2014-02-27T17:25:31.014Z - Connected to FTP server example.com

2014-02-27T17:25:31.488Z - Can't download folder 'Another-folder-to-download'; error message: The server does not support passive FTP

2014-02-27T17:25:51.021Z - Checking folder '/Folder' on FTP server 'example.com'

2014-02-27T17:26:40.030Z - Can't get file list from FTP server. Error: The server does not support passive FTP

2014-02-27T17:27:01.203Z - Checking folder '/Folder' on FTP server 'example.com'

2014-02-27T17:27:01.681Z - Can't get file list from FTP server. Error: The server does not support passive FTP

2014-02-27T17:27:22.751Z - Checking folder '/Folder' on FTP server 'example.com'

2014-02-27T17:27:24.283Z - Can't get file list from FTP server. Error: The server does not support passive FTP

2014-02-27T17:27:42.682Z - Checking folder '/Folder' on FTP server 'example.com'

2014-02-27T17:27:55.554Z - Can't get file list from FTP server. Error: The server does not support passive FTP

2014-02-27T17:28:16.605Z - Checking folder '/Folder' on FTP server 'example.com'

2014-02-27T17:29:38.269Z - Can't get directory size from FTP server. Error: The server does not support passive FTP

2014-02-27T17:29:39.306Z - Connected to FTP server example.com

2014-02-27T17:29:59.398Z - Checking folder '/Folder' on FTP server 'example.com'

2014-02-27T17:30:00.369Z - Finished downloading folder '/Folder/Subfolder/Yet-another-folder-to-download'

I also tried setting the Passive connection option to No, which resulted in a different error:

2014-02-27T17:45:01.647Z - Checking folder '/Folder' on FTP server 'example.com'

2014-02-27T17:45:02.758Z - Can't get file list from FTP server. Error: Command not implemented on the server

Can anyone shed some light on this matter, is there anything I can still try on Switch? One option would be to use a different software/way to retrieve the files before taking them to Switch, but I would naturally prefer using Switch all the way.

Thanks,

Patrik

freddyp · Post by **freddyp** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:07 am

What FTP server (and version) is your customer using? And is it really FTP or is it SFTP or FTPS?

Freddy

patej · Post by **patej** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 2:48 pm

Hi,

Yes it's FTP, not SFTP. I haven't been able to confirm from them, but they are running Apache 2.22 (ubuntu) on Amazon EC2 so I think it's vsftp. FTP banner shows only version number 1.9.2.4. Does that help?

--patrik

jonasy · Post by **jonasy** » Tue Mar 04, 2014 2:59 pm

Switch 10 had a problem with some specific FTP servers which could give this error message. The problem was that the FTP server provided an incorrect response when Switch requested the contents of an empty folder on the FTP server.

The behavior of Switch was changed in Switch 11 to be able to handle such FTP servers. Can you let us know which version of Switch you are using?

I would advise you to contact Enfocus Support if you experienced the problem with the latest version of Switch.

patej · Post by **patej** » Tue Mar 04, 2014 3:02 pm

OK, thanks for the clarification. We're using Switch 11 update 4, so I'll get in touch with Enfocus Support then!

Thanks,

--patrik