FTP problems

[Russell Hafter News]

Anyone else have problems accessing their websites by FTP
since the end of last month?

I got back from London late afternoon 1 March and found I
could not access my websites by FTP at all. FTPc just hung,
apparently.

I assumed that this would be a temporary blip and it would
come back the next day.

It did not.

No answer on Paul's helpline on Friday morning.

Paul e-mailed at 1001 after a check of the status page
stated that there were no FTP problems.

Two hours later Paul e-mailed back to say that some
passwords had not been sync'd properly - not sure what that
means.

Half an hour later the situation /had/ changed - instead
FTPc reported a password error instead of the password not
even being asked for.

By 1531 I did have FTP access back, in that the password was
accepted. But since then it takes over a minute to get any
further, which makes uploading and downloading by dialup
seem razor sharp! This was reported back to Paul too.

Equally annoying is that the timestamps on all the files had
been updated to 28 February 2007, so there is no way now of
checking which files are old and which are new.

This is not the first time that this has happened with
Orpheus, but it does not seem to happen with other ISPs!

Still no improvement this morning.

Disappointing.

[Adrian Crafer]

Post by Russell Hafter News
Anyone else have problems accessing their websites by FTP
since the end of last month?
I got back from London late afternoon 1 March and found I
could not access my websites by FTP at all. FTPc just hung,
apparently.
I assumed that this would be a temporary blip and it would
come back the next day.
It did not.
No answer on Paul's helpline on Friday morning.
Paul e-mailed at 1001 after a check of the status page
stated that there were no FTP problems.
Two hours later Paul e-mailed back to say that some
passwords had not been sync'd properly - not sure what that
means.
Half an hour later the situation /had/ changed - instead
FTPc reported a password error instead of the password not
even being asked for.
By 1531 I did have FTP access back, in that the password was
accepted. But since then it takes over a minute to get any
further, which makes uploading and downloading by dialup
seem razor sharp! This was reported back to Paul too.
Equally annoying is that the timestamps on all the files had
been updated to 28 February 2007, so there is no way now of
checking which files are old and which are new.
This is not the first time that this has happened with
Orpheus, but it does not seem to happen with other ISPs!
Still no improvement this morning.
Disappointing.

I have just checked my three accounts. One I can access with FTP, the
other two I cannot, they give a 'connection failed' error. The date
stamps on the one I can access seem ok. The other ones since I cannot
access them I do not know.


Adrian Crafer

[Paul Vigay]

Post by Adrian Crafer
I have just checked my three accounts. One I can access with FTP, the
other two I cannot, they give a 'connection failed' error. The date
stamps on the one I can access seem ok. The other ones since I cannot
access them I do not know.

Which websites are those? If you give me the URLs I'll check them from here.

Paul

[Adrian Crafer]

Post by Paul Vigay

Post by Adrian Crafer
I have just checked my three accounts. One I can access with FTP, the
other two I cannot, they give a 'connection failed' error. The date
stamps on the one I can access seem ok. The other ones since I cannot
access them I do not know.

Which websites are those? If you give me the URLs I'll check them from here.
Paul

Been out all day.

www.timesegement.co.uk and www.signalworks.co.uk are the offending ones.

Adrian Crafer

[Adrian Crafer]

Post by Adrian Crafer

Post by Paul Vigay

Post by Adrian Crafer
I have just checked my three accounts. One I can access with FTP, the
other two I cannot, they give a 'connection failed' error. The date
stamps on the one I can access seem ok. The other ones since I cannot
access them I do not know.

Which websites are those? If you give me the URLs I'll check them from here.
Paul

Been out all day.
www.timesegement.co.uk and www.signalworks.co.uk are the offending ones.
Adrian Crafer

And again without the spelling mistake www.timesegment.co.uk


Adrian Crafer

[Russell Hafter News]

Post by Russell Hafter News
By 1531 I did have FTP access back, in that the password
was accepted. But since then it takes over a minute to
get any further, which makes uploading and downloading by
dialup seem razor sharp!

No change so far all day.

It takes 75sec from clicking on the name of the website in
FTPc's user menu before the files become available, but it
takes twice as long to upload a file - 2.5 minutes.

Almost all that time is taken with waiting for something to
happen. Checking with another computer to see if the file
has actually uploaded shows that it has not, until FTPc
lists the files again.

[Paul Vigay]

It takes 75sec from clicking on the name of the website in FTPc's user
menu before the files become available, but it takes twice as long to
upload a file - 2.5 minutes.

It's instant here, and uploading/downloading files is instant too. Have you
changed anything in FTPc as I'm unable to reproduce this problem.

[Nick Roberts]

Post by Paul Vigay

It takes 75sec from clicking on the name of the website in FTPc's
user menu before the files become available, but it takes twice as
long to upload a file - 2.5 minutes.

It's instant here, and uploading/downloading files is instant too.
Have you changed anything in FTPc as I'm unable to reproduce this
problem.

It isn't instant here, I'm afraid.

I'm in the process of copying a <3k GIF from my website to my local
machine (using a broadband connection), and it has so far taken it long
enough to compose this posting...

... and spell check it...

... and make a cup of coffee. Real coffee, not instant. After putting
the water through a Brita water filter.

I didn't bother waiting to see if FTPc could copy the file before I
finished drinking the coffee.

I haven't done anything to FTPc recently (certainly nothing since the
last time I used it from SiteMatch to update my web site, which was
several weeks ago).

[Russell Hafter News]

Paul Vigay

In article
Russell Hafter News

Post by Russell Hafter News
It takes 75sec from clicking on the name of the
website in FTPc's user menu before the files become
available, but it takes twice as long to upload a
file - 2.5 minutes.

It's instant here, and uploading/downloading files is
instant too. Have you changed anything in FTPc as I'm
unable to reproduce this problem.

It isn't instant here, I'm afraid.
I'm in the process of copying a <3k GIF from my website
to my local machine (using a broadband connection), and
it has so far taken it long enough to compose this
posting...
... and spell check it...
... and make a cup of coffee. Real coffee, not instant.
After putting the water through a Brita water filter.
I didn't bother waiting to see if FTPc could copy the
file before I finished drinking the coffee.

Paul sent me a screenshot (inside a ZIP archive) to show
the settings he used.

His version of FTPc was obviously not the same as mine.

I upgraded to ver 1.44 and it behaved identically.

I then decided to try with passive mode off (I have been
using this for a couple of years now, so I cannot remember
why it was necessary), and things were back to normal.
:-)

So, for the moment, I can access all websites without using
passive mode.

Presumably it can be turned on for just one website if it
should prove necessary again in the future, though how you
do it I have no idea.

Editing the user menu is almost impossible as it is so
opaque. The order of bits and pieces in it bears no relation
to the FTPc window, and there seems to be no way of getting
the data into an FTPc window other than entering it
manually, which means deciphering the user menu, which as
already noted is impossible.
:-(

The help file I also find unclear. Fortunately the program
itself is pretty intuitive.
:-)

The fact remains, though, that /something/ happened to the
Orpheus system over the last few days that meant it could no
longer cope with passive mode.

I have also discovered another change:

The webservers used to return the HTTP header:
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1

which overrid whatever settings there are in your own
webpage HTTP header.

The server now seems to be returning
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

which is an improvement, in that that allows me to have
Czech place names spelled properly again.

I still think it would be better if the server returned no
header at all, but UTF-8 is /much/ less bad than ISO-8859-1

Most of the Czech websites I see seem to use
charset=windows-1250. Aaaaghh!

[Adrian Crafer]

Post by Russell Hafter News

Paul Vigay

In article
Russell Hafter News

Post by Russell Hafter News
It takes 75sec from clicking on the name of the
website in FTPc's user menu before the files become
available, but it takes twice as long to upload a
file - 2.5 minutes.

It's instant here, and uploading/downloading files is
instant too. Have you changed anything in FTPc as I'm
unable to reproduce this problem.

It isn't instant here, I'm afraid.
I'm in the process of copying a <3k GIF from my website
to my local machine (using a broadband connection), and
it has so far taken it long enough to compose this
posting...
... and spell check it...
... and make a cup of coffee. Real coffee, not instant.
After putting the water through a Brita water filter.
I didn't bother waiting to see if FTPc could copy the
file before I finished drinking the coffee.

Paul sent me a screenshot (inside a ZIP archive) to show
the settings he used.
His version of FTPc was obviously not the same as mine.
I upgraded to ver 1.44 and it behaved identically.
I then decided to try with passive mode off (I have been
using this for a couple of years now, so I cannot remember
why it was necessary), and things were back to normal.
:-)
So, for the moment, I can access all websites without using
passive mode.

I have tried with both passive mode on and off - no difference on the
two websites that do not work, and the one that still works works with
either passive mode on or off.

[snip]

Adrian Crafer

[Nick Roberts]

Post by Adrian Crafer

Post by Russell Hafter News

Paul Vigay

Post by Paul Vigay
It's instant here, and uploading/downloading files is
instant too. Have you changed anything in FTPc as I'm
unable to reproduce this problem.

It isn't instant here, I'm afraid.

[SNIP]

Post by Adrian Crafer

Post by Russell Hafter News
So, for the moment, I can access all websites without using
passive mode.

I have tried with both passive mode on and off - no difference on
the two websites that do not work, and the one that still works
works with either passive mode on or off.

It's fine now ( and with no changes to FTPc, so any configuration
issues at my end were not responsible).

<Later>
At 20:30 I tried to use FTPc (via SiteMatch) to update my site, and I
gave up waiting for it to connect.

There is something wrong, and I'm pretty sure it's at Orpheus' end.

[Paul Vigay]

Post by Nick Roberts
<Later>
At 20:30 I tried to use FTPc (via SiteMatch) to update my site, and I
gave up waiting for it to connect.
There is something wrong, and I'm pretty sure it's at Orpheus' end.

How odd. I definitely can't reproduce this here. What settings did you have
in FTPc? Were you using passive mode on or off?

Your site is actually hosted on a different server to Russell's, so won't
be affected by the password syncing problem that some websites (hosted on
the same server as the failed WebMail one) suffered from the other day.
Indeed, your http://tigger.orpheusweb.co.uk/ has been unaffected by recent
server issues.

[Adrian Crafer]

Post by Paul Vigay

Post by Nick Roberts
<Later>
At 20:30 I tried to use FTPc (via SiteMatch) to update my site, and I
gave up waiting for it to connect.
There is something wrong, and I'm pretty sure it's at Orpheus' end.

How odd. I definitely can't reproduce this here. What settings did you have
in FTPc? Were you using passive mode on or off?
Your site is actually hosted on a different server to Russell's, so won't
be affected by the password syncing problem that some websites (hosted on
the same server as the failed WebMail one) suffered from the other day.
Indeed, your http://tigger.orpheusweb.co.uk/ has been unaffected by recent
server issues.

My status is that the two sites of mine are still not accessible by
FTPc and one is accessible. All sites are accessible in a browser -
Oregano.

Seams to be a problem at the Orpheus end.

Adrian Crafer

[Paul Vigay]

My status is that the two sites of mine are still not accessible by FTPc
and one is accessible. All sites are accessible in a browser - Oregano.

I've just manually reset the passwords on your two domains, so please try
again and all should hopefully be working normally now.

The problem seems to have stemmed from when we had an unexpected hardware
failure on one of the hard drives last week. Due to redundancy, downtime
was less than an hour as we mirrored the sites affected onto another
server. Unfortunately a small batch of passwords didn't get sync'd to their
previous values, so a few sites (about 10) had their passwords reset. These
had to be reset manually.

Other than that, all services are running normally and a new hard drive
should arrive today so by mid-week everything should be restored to
normality - so no sperm whales or bowls of petunias should appear from
nowhere! ;-)

Paul

(emailed as well)

[Adrian Crafer]

Post by Paul Vigay

My status is that the two sites of mine are still not accessible by FTPc
and one is accessible. All sites are accessible in a browser - Oregano.

I've just manually reset the passwords on your two domains, so please try
again and all should hopefully be working normally now.
The problem seems to have stemmed from when we had an unexpected hardware
failure on one of the hard drives last week. Due to redundancy, downtime
was less than an hour as we mirrored the sites affected onto another
server. Unfortunately a small batch of passwords didn't get sync'd to their
previous values, so a few sites (about 10) had their passwords reset. These
had to be reset manually.
Other than that, all services are running normally and a new hard drive
should arrive today so by mid-week everything should be restored to
normality - so no sperm whales or bowls of petunias should appear from
nowhere! ;-)
Paul
(emailed as well)

Thanks seems to be working now.

Thanks

Adrian Crafer

[Russell Hafter News]

In article

Post by Paul Vigay
Other than that, all services are running normally and a
new hard drive should arrive today so by mid-week
everything should be restored to normality - so no sperm
whales or bowls of petunias should appear from nowhere!
;-)

What about restoration of webstats?

I e-mailed you about this yesterday.

[Nick Roberts]

Post by Nick Roberts

Post by Adrian Crafer
I have tried with both passive mode on and off - no difference on
the two websites that do not work, and the one that still works
works with either passive mode on or off.

It's fine now ( and with no changes to FTPc, so any configuration
issues at my end were not responsible).
<Later>
At 20:30 I tried to use FTPc (via SiteMatch) to update my site, and I
gave up waiting for it to connect.
There is something wrong, and I'm pretty sure it's at Orpheus' end.

Bad form to reply to oneself, I know, but I think I may have identified
a contributory factor.

As described above, I just failed to connect to my web site using FTPc
via my (NTL) broadband connection. In desperation, I tried using my
dialup account, and it connected immediately, and proceeded to upload
the changes (albeit at the snail-like speed of dialup).

Hance, I'm left wondering whether the problems I'm having connecting to
Orpheus' FTP server problems relate to connection via an unexpected
(i.e. non-Orpheus) gateway machine.

[Paul Vigay]

In article <***@bc63.orpheusinternet.co.uk>,
Nick Roberts <***@orpheusinternet.co.uk> wrote:
[Snip]

Post by Nick Roberts
Hance, I'm left wondering whether the problems I'm having connecting to
Orpheus' FTP server problems relate to connection via an unexpected (i.e.
non-Orpheus) gateway machine.

No. That shouldn't affect anything. You should be able to connect to
Orpheus FTP from any server.

[Nick Roberts]

Post by Paul Vigay
[Snip]

Post by Nick Roberts
Hance, I'm left wondering whether the problems I'm having
connecting to Orpheus' FTP server problems relate to connection via
an unexpected (i.e. non-Orpheus) gateway machine.

No. That shouldn't affect anything. You should be able to connect to
Orpheus FTP from any server.

I was in "grasping at straws" mode when I wrote that, but it seems to
be completely repeatable:

Connect via NTL broadband - runs like an absolute dog, and FTPc
usually gives up before a connection is made.

Wind up the modem - straight in, file transfer at the best that
dialup can manage.

Drop the modem, and use broadband - runs like an anaemic tortoise
wading through treacle. While towing an iron lung.

[Paul Vigay]

Connect via NTL broadband - runs like an absolute dog, and FTPc usually
gives up before a connection is made.

Ahhh. I suspect that NTL are using network bandwidth shaping (which a lot
of the 'el cheapo' ISPs do) which can affect some lesser used or
unauthorised ports. Thus you can web browse and download emails nice and
fast but FTP and MSN run really slow and some ISPs block P2P file sharing
and bit torrent altogether.

Is NTL perhaps doing something like this?

[Nick Roberts]

Post by Paul Vigay

Post by Nick Roberts
Connect via NTL broadband - runs like an absolute dog, and FTPc
usually gives up before a connection is made.

Ahhh. I suspect that NTL are using network bandwidth shaping (which a
lot of the 'el cheapo' ISPs do) which can affect some lesser used or
unauthorised ports. Thus you can web browse and download emails nice
and fast but FTP and MSN run really slow and some ISPs block P2P file
sharing and bit torrent altogether.
Is NTL perhaps doing something like this?

It's certainly possible; but if they are, by a remarkable coincidence
they started at the same time other people have started having
problems, as I have only started having trouble with FTPc over the last
week or so.

I also doubt if it would be quite as draconian as this - it would have
to be a pretty extreme effect for FTPc to time out before making a
connection, which is what happens 9 times out of 20.

[Nick Roberts]

Post by Nick Roberts

Post by Paul Vigay

Post by Nick Roberts
Connect via NTL broadband - runs like an absolute dog, and FTPc
usually gives up before a connection is made.

Ahhh. I suspect that NTL are using network bandwidth shaping (which
a lot of the 'el cheapo' ISPs do) which can affect some lesser used
or unauthorised ports. Thus you can web browse and download emails
nice and fast but FTP and MSN run really slow and some ISPs block
P2P file sharing and bit torrent altogether.
Is NTL perhaps doing something like this?

It's certainly possible; but if they are, by a remarkable coincidence
they started at the same time other people have started having
problems, as I have only started having trouble with FTPc over the
last week or so.
I also doubt if it would be quite as draconian as this - it would
have to be a pretty extreme effect for FTPc to time out before making
a connection, which is what happens 9 times out of 20.

^^
or even 10.