FTP suddenly not working

no idea why

[KeithDouglas]

For a couple years I have maintained three different websites (on three different hosts) and have used WS FTP without any problem. Starting yesterday I can't get WS FTP to connect to any of them. When I try to connect it just hangs, and eventually shows an error message that says "Receive error: Blocking call canceled."

The only things I can think of that recently changed on my computer, between the last time I sucessfully used the FTP program and yesterday is that I installed the updated McAfee Personal Firewall Plus. So I chatted with McAfee support and tried a few different settings of something to do with ports 20 and 21. And I tried disabling the Firewall. And I tried uninstalling the Firewall. Nothing made any difference. The WS FTP still won't work.

Then I tried typing FTP commands in the Command Prompt window (I have XP). That didn't work either. Instead of connecting and asking for my user name and password, it just stopped.

And I tried downloading another FTP program and installing it. It also didn't work.

In the meantime I have reinstalled the Firewall.

Does anyone have any idea what's wrong?

(I have to get this week's church bulletin on the church website!)

Thanks!

[txbakers]

Yes, it's a firewall issue. The sofware firewalls like McAfee, etc. are nasty for this. They think it's an intrusion of some sort and won't allow.

You'll have to tweak the settings to allow that port or ports to be opened going out.

[KeithDouglas]

Well, the ending of this story is that after I uninstalled the firewall I reinstalled the FTP progranm and then did a clean reinstall after doing a complete defrag and checking the hard drive for errors) of the firewall. And now everything is back to normal.