FTP not working on broadband

but it works on dial-up

[tedster]

What could make this happen? It's only on one server and it just started to happen. All my other client sites and their servers or web hosts are just fine.

On a cable broadband connection, when I try to FTP to this server, I get an intial connection on port 21 but no further server response -- no request for user ID or password -- and the connection eventually times out.

I'm using the same FTP client and the same host that I've been working with for nearly five years. No changes to the site profile, but just to be sure I created a brand new profile on the FTP client and I still had the same problem. And then I fired up a different FTP client, and I still had the same problem.

After confirming with others that they CAN still access this server via FTP, I decided to try my dial-up connection (with a different ISP) -- and what do you know, it works.

Of course I don't want to move big files around via dial-up, but right now it's all I can do. Where do I look to find a fix? What might it be?

[DaveAtIFG]

If your broadband/FTP client still connects to other FTP servers, the problem must be with that particular FTP server. Recent changes to spam filters, banned IP lists, or firewall configs are most likely to induce this type problem.

[mat]

Might be worth telling your FTP client to connect in PASV mode on the broadband?

[skipfactor]

Tried the numeric IP as hostname instead of ftp.domain.com?

[tedster]

Thanks all - good ideas, but I get no joy using the numeric IP or PASV mode. I agree that it seems like it must be the server itself.

I'm in touch with the sysadmin for the hosting service - in fact he's the owner of the service and he's taking this seriously. But so far, since no one else can duplicate the problem, we're stuck.

[skipfactor]

Another dumb stab: tried powering down the modem? Sometimes my DSL connection can't reach certain IPs, reset the modem & everything's fine.

[tedster]

Yeah, skipfactor. I neglected to mention it before but it was of our first tries at a fix.

[sun818]

On broadband, can you telnet to your domain on port 21?

telnet ftp.yourdomain.com 21

then type:

USER yourusername
PASS yourpassword

You won't see yourself echo, but its a good way to test if you can connect to port 21 and log into the FTP server.

I also suggest sending a tracert from your broadband connection and from your dial-up connection. You want to send both results to your web host which will help with troubleshooting if it is a routing issue.

[tedster]

Well, some time in the last hour the problem vanished spontaneously, after two days of nonsense. Guess it will just be on of those mysteries. By the way the two tracerts were identical routing.