FTP problems (connection drops)
Posted (May 7th, 2008 at 9:49 am PST) by andreaSome of our customers are experiencing problems related to their FTP service. This includes error messages while connecting or dropped connections. We’re looking into it, and will post an update as soon as we know more. Sorry about the inconvenience.
Please check back here for updates.
Update 5/7/08 11am Pacific — We have narrowed down the problem to only affecting customers using the following ISPs: AT&T/Sbcglobal, Comcast and RoadRunner. We have tested the following solution with the help of one of the affected customers, so this should work for all: You will need to change your ftp-only user to sftp to go around what we suspect to be bandwidth throttling affecting only FTP connections.
Edit your ftp-only user to be sftp in the control panel under Users/Manage Users ( https://panel.dreamhost.com/index.cgi?tree=users.users& ). This should schedule a user update, and as soon as the little clock next to your username in the control panel is gone, log in with that user using the SFTP settings on your upload client, and you should be able to upload the large files. If your current client doesn’t have SFTP connection, you will need to download another one.
Please note, if you’re already using a shell user to connect through ftp, then all you need to do is change to sftp in your client, you don’t need to modify your user.
If the above doesn’t make your problems go away, then it’s most likely unrelated. Please send support a message, so we can look into it for you.
Update 5/8/08 9am Pacific — Apparently Verizon and other ISPs have been added to the list. Even if your ISP is not listed, please try to change to sftp, and if that doesn’t work, let us know with as many details as possible.
Update 5/8/08 10:50am Pacific — We’re continuing to look into this problem to make sure it’s not something on our end that’s causing the connection drops. We have just tested a few more cases were the customer switching to SFTP didn’t make a difference, but so far we couldn’t replicate the problem, but we’re still checking, examining more data.
In the meantime, continue trying to switch to SFTP to try that way. We recommend that over FTP anyway for its security. If you’re using telnet, you should be switching to ssh instead.
Here’s a link to the article in our Wiki regarding the use of SFTP…
(http://wiki.dreamhost.com/SFTP)
Update 5/09/08 8:15pm Pacific — We’re still looking into this issue, and thought it was resolved for most users, however, that doesn’t seem to be the case. At this point, all tests we’ve run on users mentioning problems come back working 100%. We’re unable to verify the problem at all, other than the support that’s coming in about it. We do have some support personal on some of the effected networks, and will be doing tests.
We apologize for the delay in getting this fixed, however, it’s not reproducible on our end, at all, so that makes it even that much more difficult to track down. We’ll keep updating, the more info we have.
Update 5/10/08 7:45pm Pacific — Ok, this still seems to be happening, however, we may have found a way around things. We’ve tested on a known problem network, and the test went through correctly. Please try FTP again, as some head way in the issue has been made. If not, hold tight, we’re still working on the problem
Update 5/15/08 11:00am Pacific — We’ve made a couple of small changes to our FTP server that seem to be resolving the connection dropping issues for some people. The changes should now be live on all shared servers and will be live on all PS servers shortly. If people could test some of their uploads and report success or failures to support, the help would be appreciated.
187 Responses to “FTP problems (connection drops)”
I’m semi glad it’s not just me having that trouble! I’ll be checking back for updates, since my clients have needed their files since last night… which is when my troubles started!
I had someone tell me this was a problem last night but I didn’t bother to submit a report because I thought it was connected to the Apache problems. Guess not.
I thought this was just my computer at first, although glad to see you’ve noticed the problem, and now appears to be much better for me. Although the dreamhost webftp interface did seem to stay working all the time.
Not only is my FTP access not working, but my domains are down too 
Aaah, now i get it.
Glad to hear it wasn’t me.
FTP is evil. This is a Jolly Good Thing. Use SFTP, folks.
Wow. This has been annoying me for months now and I thought it was a problem with my wireless connection, but no, it’s just Time Warner Cable just being lame.
same as last night
Still having problems uploading with FTP and i’m outside of the US.
Yeah, this isn’t the problem. The dropped connection is only happening with one of my users and none of the attempts have been from Comcast, RoadRunner or At&t, so I’m pretty darn sure it’s on Dreamhost’s end.
Still not working do something guys!
1) The problem exists for plenty of other ISPs. It’s not an ISP issue. I’m connecting from outside the US, obviously I do not use the ISPs above.
2) SFTP is all fine and well but Dreamhost offer an anonymous FTP service and you can’t set the anonymous ftp account to use SFTP, from what I can see.
This is not a fix, it’s a workaround and one that doesn’t suit everyone.
It worked before so you should be able to fix it. Stop blaming ISPs. The ISPs listed are a coincidence, not the cause.
None of our problems are with those ISPs, including some out-of-US users. As I said in reply email, sftp isn’t a possibility with anonymous ftp, which we need to have available in some situations, so this isn’t a solution, either.
Does anybody else use their ftp site to upload to clients who don’t use client software like filezilla? I found that IE and MacOSX do not support sftp. Is this correct? My clients just go to my ftp site through their IE browser and log in to download my files to their desktop. This sftp workaround solution won’t work for that purpose. Anybody have any suggestions?
Same problem, it’s a minor miracle my clients now understand how to http://ftp. They’re not going to get sftp.
Yea no go still…tried Fetch and Cyberduck, both timeout.
This is NOT resolved…
I’ve been doing my uploads exactly the same way for nearly 3 years. I went thru the instructions provided above and all it did was waste my time.
AT&T has changed nothing. Please fix this ASAP.
The problem is NOT resolved - 5:15 pm EST. Cannot connect to the server.
I’d rather have you be slow in resolving the problem than claim it’s resolved when it isn’t.
My Log…
[-1,5/7/2008 5:18:00 PM,4]Starting request
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:00 PM,0]TYPE I
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:00 PM,0]200 Type set to I
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:00 PM,0]PASV
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:00 PM,0]227 Entering Passive Mode (208,113,245,155,129,24).
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:00 PM,0]connecting data channel to 208.113.245.155:129,24(33048)
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:00 PM,0]data channel connected to 208.113.245.155:129,24(33048)
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:00 PM,0]STOR DaFence.exe
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:00 PM,0]150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for DaFence.exe
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:41 PM,3]hResRead: 0, hResWrite:a0310035
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:41 PM,3]Error reading response from server.
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:41 PM,0]# transferred 2007040 bytes in 41.156 seconds, 380.987 Kbps ( 47.623 Kbps), transfer failed.
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:41 PM,3]It appears that the connection is dead. Attempting reconnect…
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:41 PM,1]Connecting to 208.113.245.155:21
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:41 PM,1]Connected to 208.113.245.155:21 in 0.000000 seconds, Waiting for Server Response
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]220 ProFTPD 1.3.1 Server (DreamHost FTP) [208.113.245.155]
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]Host type (1): Automatic Detect
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]USER bootstrap
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]331 Password required for bootstrap
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]PASS (hidden)
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]230 User bootstrap logged in
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]SYST
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]215 UNIX Type: L8
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]Host type (2): Unix (Standard)
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]PWD
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]257 “/” is the current directory
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]CWD http://www.bootstrapimages.com
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]250 CWD command successful
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]CWD DaFence
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]250 CWD command successful
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,2]New connection OK. Reissuing command.
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]TYPE I
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]200 Type set to I
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]PASV
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]227 Entering Passive Mode (208,113,245,155,194,118).
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]connecting data channel to 208.113.245.155:194,118(49782)
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]data channel connected to 208.113.245.155:194,118(49782)
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]REST 2007040
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]350 Restarting at 2007040. Send STORE or RETRIEVE to initiate transfer
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]STOR DaFence.exe
[2,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,0]554 DaFence.exe: invalid REST argument
[-1,5/7/2008 5:18:42 PM,4]Transfer request completed with status: Failed, 1 SubItem(s) failed
Perhaps this might help.
The problem is NOT resolved and it’s not the fault of the ISP.
Enough is enough!
I’ve found that some of the problem is DNS related (or ISP caching the old DNS data). Apparently some of the servers have changed IP addresses, or at least that was the case for Peso, Logging in from a different location gets a different ip from where here, one that actually works for logging in. The old IP for Peso now points to apache2-nads.pocky.dreamhost.com according to the dns at the other location.
If its the ISP’s problem, then why is it I can ftp upload files to another (non dreamhost) site? Also, why would this effect so many people from different ISP’s all at the same time?
I was just successful using my AT&T connection to upload the same 13MB file to my client’s ftp site that failed to load on my Dreamhost ftp site this morning. I believe our Happy Dreamhost friends should look inward.
The listed fix here, doesn’t work. Go Dreamhost! You guys are awesome!
i am from germany and had ftp problems too.
and currently i am not able to access my files via http at all.
SIGH.
Hi guys, I think this is much larger and widespread than you think…. and it most certainly is not resolved.
My site is down and I cannot access via ftp (or even the webftp) and it is midday in New Zealand with a lot of people trying to access the site today.
I hope you haven’t gone off to bed in America yet ….
So there’s no mention of the panel going down?
https://panel.dreamhost.com/
Temporarily Unavailable
The web panel is temporarily unavailable while we perform maintenance on our database.
Any idea when this is going back up?
So, I thought I would check my email…nope.
“Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Lost connection to MySQL server during query in /usr/local/squirrelmail-1.4.9a/plugins/dreamhost_virtualhosts/setup.php on line 281
1044: Access denied for user ’squirrelmail’@'192.168.10.0/255.255.255.0′ to database ‘……..’”
OK then, how about I have a look at the panel to see whats up…nope
“Temporarily Unavailable
The web panel is temporarily unavailable while we perform maintenance on our database.
[Sources: dreamhost] ”
Um, I sure you guys are on this but, could you give us a hint?
An hour ago I was able to upload a 69mb file to another, non-dreamhost site, with no issues.
Blaming it on the ISP is a cop-out. I sincerely don’t understand…
Perhaps it’s time to move on.
SFTP seems to function, but my clients need to access via web browsers, as others have mentioned. I need regular ‘ol FTP, and I need it soon!
it worked for me on the third try
I too am having problems with regular http://FTP. I am on Time Warner Road Runner in Los Angeles, just down the road from Dreamhost, so I shouldn’t be having too many problems. I’m trying the SFTP solution now and keeping my fingers crossed.
Damn, damn, damn Time Warner if they are in fact throttling http://FTP... I’m paying for the “premium” service for a reason.
DH, please let us know as soon as possible if it does seem to be a throttling problem so I can go bitch at their customer service reps.
I have always used SCP for transfers. Works a treat with encryption.
just encountered the connection drop prob. i’m with cablevision in NYC. switching to sftp helped
Had the same problem on Verizon in Massachusetts, I can’t even upload relatively small files, this clearly is not an ISP issue and needs to be resolved immediately, not having FTP access is not acceptable.
I call bullshit. i’m using ftp to upload to another host for my next mission critical problem and the upload is going fine.
So far the ftp upload dropped once on dh. Yeah, I used sftp earlier but I want to use ftp, and it’s BULLSHIT if I can’t.
haha, i said problem, i meant project……..DH has so many problems!!
yeah, the upload is stalling on dh but going fine at ‘the other host’
the fact that only 35 people have responded to a loss of ftp use-ability implies that many serious webmasters have left DH already.
and don’t lie to me about throttling
yes, my ftp time out
this is NOT resolved!!! Dropping out every 10 minutes on my 1.5gb upload!
SFTP fixed the problem for now (thanks for that), but I’m with others who say it’s not an ISP problem.. I can upload and download with no problems from other, non-DH sites….. I’m just sayin. 
Yep - same story. I’m not on any of the fingered ISPs, yet my FTP connections are constantly dropping. SFTP does solve it, but that is definitely just a workaround, not a satisfactory solution. Until the word does away with the standard FTP protocol, I need Dreamhost to support it!
Techs of dreamhost UNDERSTAND it is not an issue with ISPs there is a problem at your end!
I can upload with the same client the same files to another host but not to dreamhost!
Hey am I supposed to be able to browse through the root directories of the server and see all the members of the server? Probably not.. you might want to fix that little security hiccup, DH
just sent you guys a support ticket. My problem is the opposite - SFTP stopped working for me across the board sometime during the last month. The connection problems occur for everybody whom is trying to connect to a SFTP account on my account - some of those users are on very large corporate nets that are likely NOT accessing the internet through a Roadrunner or Comcast etc. account. Right now, I have everyone on plain old FTP, but would very much like to go back to the secure protocol.
Based on the wide array of access points that my clients are logging on from, I wouldn’t discount the theory that the problem may lie on the DH side of things.
Yeah this sucks. I’m with Verizon Business DSL and it’s a hit or miss situation. I’ve stuck with dreamhost for a couple years through the other issues but if this one can’t be resolved quick I’m gone too. We use Sorenson Squeeze to encode and upload our nightly newscasts, which is our biggest draw for the website. It uploads with ftp and doesn’t have an sftp option. When I get here in the morning and see that the transfers failed after the encoding, I know I have a couple hours of work ahead of me doing all the encoding and uploading manually. Not to mention another night of the news not making it to the site which makes any news organization look bad.
ok, our client in Texas doesn’t have an SFTP option, so this just isn’t going to work for us. You try telling a $400 million dollar company they need to switch all of their FTP clients in order to send us files from now on!
I am in LA on Time Warner as well - SFTP fixed the ftp issues, but I still cannot see any of my own sites, log into any of my dashboards, or even log into the DH Web Panel without the sites spinning for at least 5 minutes before letting me in (if at all). However, DH support says there is something wrong with my browsers and not with them…yet, they seem to work for every other site except anything hosted at DH. So how exactly is this a problem caused by a browser and not DH?
Such faulty logic amazes me.
Even SFTP isn’t working for me.
Here’s an email I got from Dreamhost today.
Sorry about the continued problems with this. We have re-opened the case,
and one of our admins is checking network dumps to find out more in cases
such as yours when SFTP doesn’t seem to be doing the trick. Please try to
upload again with FTP and SFTP so we can get some more data to examine,
and let me know which user’s data we should check out.
Thanks!
Andrea
I was experiencing dropped connections using WinSCP to connect via http://FTP. Switching to FileZilla I haven’t been dropped yet.
Dreamhost could try taking a laptop that DOES work at their offices to a location in LA that uses any one of 4 or 5 ISP’s (i’ll give them one) where the timeout is shorter then a……. And then tell us that it’s not on their end.
Like we would all just start having the same issue all at the same time from all over?
For me FTP is still broken, so why is this blog entry marked “Resolved: YES”?!
is this being fixed. wtf, no ftp w/dh.? that’s hella fucked up.
I was trrying to upload our class presentation of The FiOS Today Show, and it was failing consistently. I was really getting frustrated, until I checked in here and changed my user to use sftp instead of shell. WSftp_LE doesn’t allow sftp, so I downloaded WinSCP and I’ll give that a try…
repete, you know it’s just not necessary to flood the comments, right? Yes, I’m a trifle upset I can’t use FTP at the moment too, because I use FTP to upload my weather website (which crapped out last night at 6:01 MST), but other than that I use SSH/SCP for all my transfers/managing, and most of my websites are automatically updating from SVN repositories anyway. So I (among with the “serioius webmasters” you mention) are NOT mourning the loss of an insecure protocol such as FTP, since we are ALREADY using secure protocols that DON’T rely on the FTP service… I mean, it’s not 1995 anymore, people!
Oh, and DH, this isn’t resolved. I’m gonna have to put in a ticket. The software that runs my only FTP website doesn’t make logs, so I can’t give you the log data (but I’m sure you could retrieve that on your end). However, I will go ahead and post my traceroute from the affected machine.
$ traceroute baht.dreamhost.com
Tracing route to baht.dreamhost.com [205.196.218.11]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1
Hmmm, guess that didn’t work. Oh well. The point is, my traffic does NOT run through any of the named ISPs. This is obviously NOT resolved; in fact, it’s gotten WORSE since this entry was originally posted!
After nearly giving up on Dreamhost, I D/L’d FileZilla, set up SFTP and was able to upload a 66.7mb file. I still find it difficult to understand that this is an ISP issue. Please let us know when, #1, you acknowledge that this is a Dreamhost issue and, #2. when the issue is resolved.
OK, I was finally able to get the files uploaded. Well, I can only surmise that it was successful because the FiOS Today Show presentation works. When I get home, I expect to see a successful transfer using WinSCP. Now, how about fixing it for all the users that are using ftp?
Here’s how to get SFTP to work for now at least if you don’t know…Since it isnt fixed.
Download Filezilla.
http://filezilla-project.org/download.php
Configuring FileZilla for SFTP
Important: Before configuring FileZilla 2.2.24 to run in SFTP, check with your Local Support Provider (LSP) to ensure your School, Department, or administrative unit supports SFTP. Since the instructions below are basic, you should also check with your LSP for any special instructions that may apply.
Start FileZilla
From the File menu, select Site Manager…….. The Site Manager windows displays.
Click the New Site button located in the bottom left corner of the window. A New FTP site icon appears beneath the My FTP Sites folder icon:
In place of the displayed words New FTP site, type a descriptive name for your new SFTP site profile (e.g., dreamhost SFTP).
Click in the Host field, then type the actual host name of the new SFTP site (e.g., servername.dreamhost.com).
Beneath Servertype, click the down arrow and select SFTP using SSH2.
Beneath Logontype, select the Normal radio button.
In the User field, enter your username.
Click the Save and Exit button at the bottom right of the window.
You have successfully created an SFTP site profile. When you next connect to this new SFTP site, you will be prompted to enter your password after entering your username.
I am on the east coast, seems to be affecting Cablevision here, FTP bails out around 80% upload.
FTP is still broken for me as well. I’m attempting to use SFTP but I will have to reconfigure a few things so I don’t know if that will solve my particular case. Even though there is the possible SFTP workaround how can this ticket be marked “Resolved” ?
FYI: The server that I’m connecting to is skoda
2 Comments:
1) SFTP did resolve the issue ftp-ing to dreamhost.
2) I don’t believe it is a Comcast problem, we just uploaded our build26 to our partners over the regular ftp and it went fine. ~100 mb single file. Over the same comcast connection that was dropping ftps like crazy when connecting to dreamhost.
Because of #2, I think the ball is at a dreamhosts court.
SFTP didn’t solve this problem for me.
And getting all of my business clients to use sftp for this problem is BS.
I’m on a large corporate network and am not sure what ISP the company uses. I followed DreamHost’s instructions to set up user as sftp and now I can’t get into the FTP server at all (the “clock” was gone on the users page, so I thought things should start working then). I’m using Transmit on a Mac and it does have an sftp option, so I’m not sure what the problem is now.
I switched over to SFTP and can’t log-in now. Anyone else having this same problem?
I’m having the same problem of not being able to login via SFTP as well. I get this error message “Could not connect to server.
Connection refused.” I’ve submitted a trouble ticket, so I’ll see what they say.
I suspect that the reason some folks are finding that SFTP works for them is that the errors are sporadic. If you’re transferring relatively small files, chances are decent that you can complete the transfer without running into an error. But on larger files, even a few MB, the chances that you’ll run into an error are good enough that you may have to retry several times before making it through the entire file. At least, that has been my experience so far.
I talked to someone here at my company about the problems with SFTP. Turns out that SFTP is not going to be a solution due to our company’s firewall. If DreamHost doesn’t provide another solution than SFTP, we won’t be able to use the FTP (and possibly DreamHost) anymore. This firewall issue is going to occur in large companies and government organizations, so I can’t imagine I’m alone here.
SFTP worked for me but after I finished downloading a file I still got my connection reset by peer message that I was getting from regular http://FTP. At least my file came down first.
Hello,
I cannot ftp to my web server.
Right now and for the past 24 hours I have been able to ftp very large amount of data to 1and1 with no out of the ordinary problems, but I cannot ftp to dh.
I think I will link this thread to anyone who still thinks DH is a credible option for anything besides a basket weaving website, which is probably no one (anymore, including me).
No offense to basket fetishists.
i like baskets
Same FTP problems. I am on Time Warner Los Angeles. Some things I noticed when trying to find the solution.
Some ftp clients work better than others, i.e. dreamweaver drops the connections consistantly, and filezilla seemed to upload better.
I could ftp to other servers (not on dreamhost network) fine with little or no dropped connections.
When doing a traceroute, there are some nodes timing out on Time Warner’s network.
Problem started a few months ago after a weekend of ISP (Time Warner) downtime.
Websites were also timing out reguarly. I resolved that by using an outside DNS server, than relying on Time Warner’s dynamically assigned DNS.
Panel.dreamhost.com still times out on me.
It could be a problem with ISP throttling, and also poorly configured DNS on dreamhost’s part.
Converting my user to sftp seems to have worked for me. For now at least.
We’re getting it square in the keister with this one:
local: DC United Vs Chicago Fire_8 May 08_010.JPG remote: DC United Vs Chicago Fire_8 May 08_010.JPG
229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||18529|)
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for DC United Vs Chicago Fire_8 May 08_010.JPG
################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################
421 Service not available, remote server has closed connection.
SCP transfers work flawlessly.
Problem I have is that the software I wrote to upload our images uses the Apache commons-net library, which doesn’t support SFTP. So I’ve gotta go make source code changes to use SFTP (and another library).
Thanks a lot Comcast.
I can reproduce this a dozen times over and I have Linux and FreeBSD servers at home. I’m willing to give you shell accounts and work with you to fix this problem.
Please call me, IM, or email me and I will be happy to work with you.
This one is a tricky one apparently, tad annoying, but what can you do? Good luck with a (quick?) fix.
thank you for being a mensch chris.
We’re having disconnection issues with normal FTP using a Singnet (Singapore) ISP.
Having the same problem from London UK. Please fix asap.
I was having the same issues just trying to move photos to one of my domains. Constant connection drops which I’ve never experienced before. Moved over to SFTP and haven’t had any issues since except with my client (beta). Left it going overnight and it sent ~500mb and was still idle connected for almost 5 hours when I woke up.
Time Warner Cable in TX.
The Netherlands having the same problem … SFTP works though, slowly but stable. Just seeing everyone posted their country, if that might help, I’ve posted mine. Succes fixing.
I have Comcast and still experiencing the problem. The speed will be smoking fast then bog down half way thru the upload and disconnect. Only trying to upload a 60mgb file. Glad to know this is not me, I have been beating my head against the wall here.
Still connection drops on FTP from Germany.
I pitty the fool that can’t fix his FTP by mothers day!!! Respect your mama punk.
After putting in a support ticket, I was just a little upset. I received the same canned message that others have reported here, with no indication that a human ever read it. As I just replied (it was a very long response), the same application, on the same computer, using the same ISP is still able to (flawlessly) FTP data to Wunderground, yet it is not even able to connect to DH. It didn’t crap out until about 6 hours AFTER they marked the post resolved on Thursday, and still has yet to work. The only difference (besides the server, of course) is the backbone the traffic gets passed through.
My traffic to Wunderground is passed from Qwest to Cogentco before it hits Wunderground. My traffic to DH is passed from Qwest to NTT to PNAP. Anyone else having problems (or even if you’re not), please run a traceroute to your server (tracert yourdomain.com from a windows prompt, traceroute yourdomain.com from MacOSX or *NIX) to see what backbone your traffic is passed through - if it’s not DH, I’m thinking it may be a backbone.
Change to sftp?! WTF? No thanks. You change to decafe! What kind of response is that? Admitting to the problem is the first step to recovery. For what it’s worth the “ISP problem” also applies to Cox.
DH, please reassure us that you are working on the issue! The blanket statement on the support page makes it sound like you ain’t doin a thing (except passing the buck)! If I feel like you aren’t working on the issue, I must go.
Furthermore, the problem is marked as “medium” urgency. Not for me. I replaced human employees with ftp scripts years ago. Because of this issue, I am paying a person again. Argh!
I changed to sftp as suggested. Now it won’t even take my ftp log in information. Great work Dreamhost. Ugh! I’ll be switching to another webhost. I’m sick of this garbage.
i’m on SBC DSL at work and TW cable at home. switching to SFTP worked at home (TW cable), but not at work (SBC DSL). i doubt this is ISP specific, but i don’t know for sure.
oh, one more note - for those who had trouble switching to SFTP, i did too at first. i had to go into the DH panel and change my SFTP password, then it worked. weird.
also, i’m only transferring small files, still getting dropped like crazy on SBC DSL.
I haven’t been able to update the site for almost a week now (because of cut outs).
and can’t use SFTP .
So this is still a problem.
I just went to the trouble of switching to SFTP as Dream host had suggested.
I started uploading some files and half way through the upload It cut out just as it had done on regular http://ftp.
I am in Australia.
It’s still happening.. it’s getting a bit ridiculous now It’s the busiest time of the week for me and I can’t provide my users with anything.
Australia…
I need regular FTP only.
Otherwise I have to leave Dreamhost.
So, think about it Dreamhost, about 20 sites will be leaving you.
“We recommend that over FTP anyway for its security.”
I don’t need security. I need to access files with ease like I have for the last 10 years.
My ver of Dreamweaver does not support SFTP. So you are insisting “we’re the problem”, and we need to collectively spend 1,000,000,00+ on new software or in lost productivity to support your whim to change?
Either FTP returns, or I don’t. I’m taking my numerous clients with me too. I’m not training eachg of my clients to solve a problem or find a workaround for a needless aggravation that you’ve created for us.
FTP ONLY!!!!!
@Jeff Don’t worry, if they were not repairing it, it wouldn’t be the issue. The fact it’s an issue says they are working to get FTP running again. But yes, I also hoped it wouldn’t last this long :(. I’m counting they do their best.
I got disconnected about every 5 minutes, so I guess it has something to do with cron job or something?
My server is daedalus, and I am from Taiwan.
Seeing similar problems from Pipex ADSL in the UK: routed via Alter.net into Dreamhost.
SFTP appears to be working.
FTP appears to have returned, at least for those on a Qwest connection in Denver accessing baht.
Anyone else having any luck?
After working all night, I’ve been trying to upload some 20 MB files for the past hour. I need to get some sleep, but I’m trying very hard to update my site for my paid subscribers. This FTP problem is frustrating! Like many of the others, I don’t want to go SFTP. I hope this problem is resolved soon.
I was frustrated because mine would drop but most the time at night when the files needed to be updated, of course. When I would try in the morning, it would work. Tried it again Friday night and had the same problem, which started last week. I’m uploading with ftp right now and it’s working fine right now. I sure hope it’s working tomorrow night when the next newscast is due to be uploaded. I’ve had to post an apology to our viewers for delay of our news, about the worst thing a news site can have is late news.
I want to end this on a positive note. At least dreamhost is working on it. When I saw them just adding every ISP out there, to a list of ISPs that had a problem, I was ready to leave. Sounded like they were placing blame elsewhere and that doesn’t result in quick repairs. Now that they admit they can’t reproduce the problem on their end but are working on it, I have a little hope that it will be fixed. Maybe some sort of compensation for causing such headaches to so many sites not being able to update their sites with a standard protocol. Not cash but something that says we are sorry for all the inconvenience this has caused. Actually the best present is to get it fixed.
So far 10gb have uploaded with ftp so far. Got my fingers crossed…
Can this please be updated to “HIGH PRIORITY”.
I and many others can’t do anything with our websites, without FTP access.
Agreed Nathan.
this is bullshit - I need to submit my final year project work for assessment, and I cannot even connect to my FTP using dreamweaver or anything to upload the fucking files - my work is due to be assessed in a day - fix the fucking thing! I live in Ireland, half of my university/college course students are also on dreamhost and having the same fucking problem -
I cannot even connect - “operation timed out” as soon as i click the button! sftp doesnt work either - useless.
I can upload using FileZilla and auto-resume but connection still keeps dropping so it’s very slow. FTP or SFTP doesn’t make any difference.
This month’s connectivity issue is sponsored by File Transfer Protocol.
There will be a $100 cash incentive to the person who correctly guesses which system will take down your sites next month.
Good luck and may the best person win - even though we all are chronic losers!
Ugh.. come on, DH! I figured I’d give you the weekend and it’d be working when I came in to work Monday morning and could happily tell our clients they can start uploading their files! Not so much.. this needs to be resolved!! Who’s going to pay for the courier charges when our clients have to send discs instead??
By the way - this is day 5 of this issue affecting so many people. How many days does this type of outage require before it is upgraded from Medium to Large? And is it OK that no one has said squat about it in 2 days? Seriously DH your reputation might get damaged if you extend it out to 3 days without an update. Some people might think you don’t care about keeping everyone properly informed. Maybe you are working on a weekly newsletter regarding outages which will be sent out by Pony Express to everyone with an account.
HEY there is an idea for DH - The Pony Express plan. Information guaranteed to reach your viewers within several weeks of completion.
fuck sake DH sort ur fuckin life out…….this is a disgrace im a chemical engineering student and should be revising for my exams and ur giving me sumthing to moan about which is distracting me from my work…….DH = cockbadger!!!
I cannot even log into FTP today. I am writing from Massachusetts. Not sure what the problem is at DH but I think this qualifies as a class action.
paddy foreman - or should I say Adam Cartlidge? - I know from experience these things take time. It looks like they’re starting to get this sorted out. You’d think such a creative and intelligent being as yourself would be able to find some better words to express yourself. I would further advise you to “revise” for any English classes you are taking. Perhaps then you wouldn’t have anything to moan about, which you said yourself is distracting you from your work.
If you really need to get “the fucking files uploaded” (I’d personally like to know how files can fuck, but that’s beside the point), I’d be more than happy to point you in the direction of the SCP protocol. You can download an excellent client from here. This is a better solution than SFTP, because it runs on completely separate technologies and will work in situations where FTP and SFTP could be experiencing problems, and what I use for the majority of my uploading.
Oh, and Sturg? Read the 3rd paragraph of the TOS for DreamHost. I’ll paste it below.
“WHEREAS, the parties acknowledge that the Internet is neither owned nor controlled by any one entity; therefore, DreamHost Web Hosting can make no guarantee that any given reader shall be able to access DreamHost Web Hosting’s server at any given time.”
Class Action = Fail according to this stipulation.
Im still having the same problem, my customers can’t download any large files from my ftp site.
I’m from perú and FTP don’t work, but I could update with SFTP… I hope this situation resolved soon
An update this week might be nice - do they want every dreamhost client to change their settings? sounds like a Dreamhost problem not a settings problem. The lack of updating people is disgraceful
I am using “SSH secure shell client” to ftp without any problems without changing my account to sftp. Using normal FTP connection does not work though.
come on DH. This has been an issue now for over 3 days! You can’t tell me this issue is only a “medium” when so many people are having problems w/ it. I can’t update my podcast until you guys get this fixed! This is ridiculous! I used to recommend you to other people, but after this I may think twice about it.
Getting “broken pipe” error messages repeatedly midway through uploading any sizeable zip file as of 10 AM tues 5/13
I’m using Roadrunner, switched over to SFTP (using Cyberduck)
Switching over appears to have solved the problem- Thanks for the update. Note though:
I’m lucky it’s only me uploading files though- I wouldn’t want to have to tell clients/associates they have to download a different ftp client to work with me.
Hello. I have problems with the FTP, the connection dropped on 5 of each 10 files. Please, try to solve the problem. Thank you.
I’m having those damned drop-offs since last week. I can’t upload big files because from time to time the connection drops and the server (Skinner) doesn’t allow resuming…
The problem persists. Please fix it guys! I know you can do it! 
Thanks.
Wow, it definitely is not an ISP issue. I just signed up with Dreamhost for the first time after hearing nothing but good things about them. I used this exact configuration elss than two weeks ago, it worked fine. now I can’t FTP and am getting this error in my log:
500 Sorry, no server available to handle request on apache2-cabo.turok.dreamhost.com
What gives?
Using Fetch on OSX Tiger…
actually it has been 6 days Ted - it has “ONLY” been 3 days since they have had the courtesy of bothering to update us.
You know how it is - The customer is always … well … I guess not worthy of being in contact with .. is what it seems.
I’m glad I checked dreamhoststatus.com to see that it wasn’t just me.
experiencing the problem too. I guess I’ll try to figure out how to scp from my windows lappy.
We’ve been checking and reconfiguring things right and left to try to get our sites to upload while at the same time trying to placate customers that are ordering items that are sold out. Since we can’t update our sites we can’t add new product to sell and have customers buying things we don’t have. We pride ourselves on our high percentage of “in stock” items. Now our customers think we’re full of bullshit and attempting some “bait and switch” tactic. I’m not at all happy about this (to put it very mildly). FOUR DAYS WASTED chasing down ghosts and smoothing feathers is getting pretty nerve wracking. At the top of my page it says “happy dreamhost customer since 1999″. Anybody got any suggestions as to a reliable hosting service??
FAILED TO PUBLISH FILES. THIS COULD BE DUE TO A SERVER DISK FULL OR BROKEN CONNECTION.
Last I checked I was only using a few percent of my allocated space.
Please let me know when I can get back to business rather than losing sales and customers!!
You can get back to business when they are damn ready to let you. You see, you have to understand. They don’t care about your business. If they did they would have updated the status of this at some point in the last 3 days. But clearly you, me and everyone else here don’t matter to them enough help or give some info. If they did, they would. Even if it was .. “We still don’t know what we are doing”.
Nothing worse than being ignored in my books
cant connect with web ftp or wsftp for a couple days now but site is working
SFTP works for me, but only on the connection from home. When I connect from the office I can only use FTP and it dies about every 5 minutes. I’m not allowed to upgrade or change the programs on the work computer and it can’t even restart an ftp connection much less an file where it got cut off. So currently the solutions aren’t working for me 100%
I find it odd that so many people are having the same problem on different ISP’s at the same time. It’s possible that it started at the same time, but I don’t know if is too likely.
AUSTRALIA:
My FTP dropped when logged onto DH.
All My websites were accessible by Firefox or IE
Other locally in Australia I could FTP other servers.
The outage seems to have lasted around 30 minutes
about 10am Wednesday 14 May 2008 Australian time
which is about 00H00 UDT . Wednesday 14 May 2008 Australian time
Guy
Almost a week now, no FTP access, pretty poor. Like selling someone a house but locking them out
PLEASE IMPLEMENT ‘RESUME’ ON ALL UPLOADS, PEOPLE!! I CAN’T EVEN UPLOAD A SMALL 15MB FILE!!!
i don’t think they know how to fix it.
Direct quote from DH support to me this morning “I wish there was more information that I could share with you, but you should know that we are actively working towards a resolution to this FTP issue. We do expect to have this issue resolved, so you can expect that FTP operations will resume shortly. However, since this is a large issue, it is taking a little more time than expected to resolve.”
I thought it was fixed because it worked Monday night. But it failed again last night. So it seems to be working now. This is whats weird. It works in the morning but fails at 6-7 PM (PST). So another night of no news video on our site. And this morning someone asked me why the continued no TV news on our site. This is sad…
Both my site (diabellalovescats.com) and my FTP are down.
Yup, I’ve been having the infamous FTP dropouts all week, too. Though it may have started last week; I just didn’t have any files to upload last week.
I can’t believe such a huge problem has persistedfor 7 days now. This is the biggest problem I’ve ever seen in the 3 years i’ve been a Dreamhost customer.
Establishing a connection takes about twice as long as normal, refreshing takes twice as long, upload speeds are about 30% lower than normal, and my connection times out after about 5 minutes. I can upload maybe 3 or 4 mb before I have to start over again.
Argh.
I had some nice patronizing exchanges with support who basically told me that i SHOULD change to SFTP anyway as it is in my best interest. Not that they have a problem that they can’t fix. As if my best interest was of any interest to them at all.
Oh and that it would be a good idea to have anyone uploading to my server do the same thing.
Oh and that yes perhaps 3 days without an update was a bit long - glad to see that they have continued not to update anyone.
In my 7 years of downed servers, SQL issues etc etc etc which literally happens every 2 months on average - this is the most apathetic and inconsiderate DH has ever treated an issue of this (Medium) magnitude. Really who needs to upload anything anyway?
It is a disgrace and a shame that they have such little regard for everyone here.
For the last couple of days, the problem was resolved for me. I was able to log on to the FTP site and upload files of any size. Now all of a sudden I can’t even log on to the FTP server—I just get the message “Server closed connection.”
May 14, got a call from a client who has been having this problem for a couple of weeks now. I bet Dreamhost wishes they had such patient customers =)
Anyhoo, May 14, still not resolved
My smart and patient client has had success by downloading and using FlashFXP which holds a transfer queue and allows you to resume file uploads where you left off if your connection drops, FWIW to the angry mob
FTP has not worked for over a week. Finally, I was able to connect during the day today but it is down as of 6pm tonight. What is the issue?!?
I, too, still have problems.My FTP client (FileZilla 3.0.9.3) drops the session after only 5-10 seconds of inactivity. I have now been using an SFTP connection without issue, but it’d be nice not to have to.
about 6pm is when I update the files for my site. Thats when I lose my connection too. I’m currently using FileZilla which is a shame because the bat file I made that was a 1 click solution for converting mpgs to flv, which uploads via ftp built into sorenson squeeze, to a temp place that swaps them out to the real dir at 8pm thanks to a crontab, is useless now. I either stay late after work, which is what I am doing now, or the evening newscast doesn’t get updated until tomorrow morning, with just as much work. Bahhh. The guy who designed our site has a solution. We are going to upload the files to one of his hosts (not on dreamhost) and redirect the links. Crazy that I go the Crazy plan and can’t even use the bandwidth I’m paying for.
What gets me the most is the misinformation DH posted attempting to link the ftp problem to ISP “throttling.” They had the gall to post (and leave) this on the ‘Contact Support’ page of the Panel:
We have narrowed down the problem to only affecting customers using the following ISPs:
AT&T/Sbcglobal, Comcast and RoadRunner.
Baloney! As many people have previously posted, this is *NOT* an ISP issue! I have an AT&T DSL connection, but I can upload using plain ftp files of 30-40 MB all day long to a site I maintain on Earthlink. And yes, *I* normally use sftp to upload files to my DH site, but my photographer can’t.
And something I haven’t seen mentioned before… DH could easily relax the upload file restrictions on net2ftp/PHP to something larger than a ridiculous 2 MB - but they’re unwilling to do that, too. (See https://webftp.dreamhost.com.)
I’ve been seriously disappointed with DH on this issue. They may leave me with no alternative but to go elsewhere. ;(
Sadly, SFTP doesn’t work for me
this is happening with Qwest as an ISP also.
Just wanted to see if our rate plans stay the same if Uploading files is no longer a viable option at Dreamhost?
PS thanks for the great updates DH. Your support team is all over customer satisfaction on this one.
I think I will need to dig a hole in the ground to lower the bar of expectations even further.
Still down. I can FTP small files and my site is still up.
I can’t seem to get a file to upload. It usually stops somewhere between 15-48%.
This isn’t an ISP issue.
I’m from Switzerland and my ISP is Swiss.
Still, after 12-13 MB the FTP connection drops. :-((
I have many flash files larger than 100MB to upload. Impossible now.
This did never happen before.
This is urgent…. please.
I can’t even logon to the FTP server anymore. The problem has actually gotten worse for me. Now I get this message: “Could not connect to server. Connection timed out or server hung up.” DreamHost support still suggests that my only solution is to use SFTP. My company is a large government contractor and for security reasons, they actually will not let people get through the firewall to use SFTP. This solution will not work for us.
I’m on Ruble.dreamhost and FTP upload of large files finally seems to work again here
Yes! It’s back up for me too.
But Dream Host…let’s not have this happen again… you hear?
Not up for me:(
FTP still drops out even before able to send a bit/byte.
Location Thailand
Program FileZilla
Just keep on using SFTP.
Very slow 3-15 Kbps, but stable and have auto resume, so never problems just start and do something else for a day or so and all is uploaded.
FTP doesn’t work for me, which is new. Yesterday (some 15 hours ago) I had no problems at all, even with large files.
Would be nice to have a solution for this.
I have yet to experience any luck with either Ftp or SFTP.
Still having Incessant connection drops.
FTP worked for me without a connection drop. I would really like to know what the full issue was once the analysis is complete.
Just upgraded to PS. Traffic to my sites has plummetted, a steady 30000 hits per day down to 3000. Not to mention slow as sh1t! oh just move the slider to the right you say, yeah im not paying antique prices for hosting. fukc that.
Don’t get PS its a trap!!!
FTP went back working fine today’s afternoon (local time, Lisbon, morning there in Utah), I managed to upload a 140Mb file, but now I need to upload another file (72Mb) and it’s going down again… damn!
Still being fixed … Autsch, it’s quiet messed up isn’t it. I just hope they won’t give up and say everyone has to use SFTP. Go Dreamhost!
PS a Trap Damn, you are sure? I had PS in mind as backup.
still doesn’t work for me. contacted support, they said it’s my “firewall”. yea.. not even gonna comment on how absurd that is.
I am having this problem as well.
I’m still having FTP troubles. I’m trying to upload two 12 MB files and it has taken me 2 hours so far. I don’t have one of the ISPs listed in the announcement. I have Cheetah High speed cable.
This is obviously not a user issue if hundreds of customers have called and complained.about the same problem. The issue started in February when they changed one of their routers. How hard is it for one of their employees to go home and try to FTP something to their servers. Doing tests within the office building is not reliable.
i’ve been patient. i posted in this thread several times over the last week, and i contacted support. to be told it’s my firewall finally pushed me over the edge
i’m moving to rackspace, it’s hella expensive but you get what you pay for i guess.
Unacceptable, I have lost sleep over this and so have my clients. Was planning to howl at Verizon tomorrow, but it seems DH it at fault. It’s a friggin’ disaster & it’s taken too long to sort out. Will go shopping around (unless you feel like compensating me for 3 days of lost revenue).
This is getting pretty old. We need an update on what’s going on. Maybe some of us can help you…
Even though I’m not having any more problems with FTP (at least for now) I still find it interesting that this has dropped off of DH’s support radar. If you go to http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/ it no longer shows even though it is still an open issue. I know this isn’t considered an official DH support channel but it seems to be the only place to get some status (even as infrequent as it is). I would love to see a blog post or newsletter like they did when they had those account issues.
Seriously- this is ridiculous…
I think Dreamhost just lost another customer and all of my people I have referred…
Forget this cr@p..
I am still having some trouble being disconnected during http://FTP. My server is coffee and I am using windstream at the office and cableone at the house. Both have the same trouble. However I switched one account to sftp and everything works great.
But if I change my main account from ftp to sftp with wordpress installed on one of my domains, will I mess up my wordpress? I don’t have a problem going through sftp. Just don’t want to mess up everyone’s blogs.
Just started getting this problem with Comcast in Richmond, VA - switched over to SFTP and everything seems to be going alright now… very strange bug.
You really need to reopen this as an outstanding issue - it’s definitely still occurring.
Just noticed this problem is present on model-t. I was using SFTP all along, a friend told me FTP is NOT working.
Take a look at it please.
Thanks.
I can’t connect at all — not webftp, not the main http://ftp. I am livid — been trying for over an hour. What is the use of a website when you can’t put files on it?
Now its June 9 and I’m still having problems with FTP, SFTP seems to work though.
Http connection and/or mysql connections are also extremely slow from time to time.
I’m in Honolulu and have Roadrunner.
mine’s gone again!! very very annoying!!
I just downloaded the latest FILEZILLA 3.11 and had lots of FTP problems.
I reinstalled the 3.9.3 and no more problems.
FTP is not working since I was first asked to work on the site last Friday… now it’s Tuesday. I see only empty directories - and when I upload a file and try to see it from my web browser I get an error that the page cannot be displayed. I’m wondering where it is I’m logging into, and wondering where the actual site really is.
Status: Connecting to 66.33.208.132…
Response: fzSftp started
Command: open “xxxxxxxxxx@66.33.208.132″ 22
Command: Pass: ************
Status: Connected to 66.33.208.132
Error: Fatal: unable to initialise SFTP on server: could not connect
Error: Could not connect to server
New DS user as of this evening. Can’t upload large files at all using sftp or scp. Uploads stall at different points in the transfer.
Well today something weird happened. I cannot connect to the FTP in bytesandbeans.com and Its still 5:44pm EST and its still not resolved.
Sigh.
Transmit 3.6.6 Session Transcript
LibNcFTP 3.2.1 (August 13, 2007) compiled for UNIX
Uname: Darwin|occ-rts-mac-admins-mac-pro.local|9.5.0|Darwin Kernel Version 9.5.0: Wed Sep 3 11:29:43 PDT 2008; root:xnu-1228.7.58~1/RELEASE_I386|i386
Server hungup immediately after connect.
500: Sorry, no server available to handle request on apache2-zed.oj.dreamhost.com
Complete FTP failure all day. Happened intermittently a few days ago, too.
Cannot ftp into ANY of my sites today! Was able to ftp in 2 nights ago with no issues…
500 Sorry, no server available to handle request on apache2-whippit.icarus.dreamhost.com
my sites are not letting me http://ftp……. urrrgh!
Thank You Site admin..
thanks
Hey Im first. Good luck fixing it.