I recently ran into a situation using Filezilla to download a large file through a VPN that caused the download to exceed 100%. In fact, if I didn’t stop it, the download would have continued. If you do stop the download and try to use the file, say it’s a ZIP, you find the file to be corrupted, which it is. Key participants in the story: Microsoft FTP server running v6.0 (hey, the BBC’s FTP server was recently hacked, so keep the opinions under control), a VPN, Router(s), Filezilla, and a very large file.
Here’s the scenario. I’m connecting through a VPN to get to the FTP server. The large file is an ISO. From past experience, I found that unless you’re getting an ISO or a VHD from the Microsoft download site, you will have trouble. Best to break the ISO up into smaller chunks.
My favorite tool to do this is 7ZIP. Read about it at http://www.7-zip.org/. I use 7ZIP to split the 4GB file into CD-size, 650MB files. When the download is complete, I use 7ZIP to combine the segments into a single file. A DVD, split up will result in 6+ CD’s.
I set the FTP properties to allow a single file at a time with a maximum speed of 200MBS and place all the individual files into the queue and start it.
Hours pass and I check back to find the first download is still running and has exceeded 100% with the file size over 800MB and rising.
I try restarting, etc., but I get the same results through the VPN. It’s ask Mr. Google time. It takes a while to phrase the question to get meaningful responses but the answer is quite simple.
It’s described in this post on the Filezilla forum. http://trac.filezilla-project.org/ticket/4753.
Essentially a router in the path will drop the ftp control connection. Filezilla is looking for a “226 Transfer OK” from the server to signal the end of file but doesn’t get it so it thinks it’s been timed out and try to resume the transfer.
My solution was to use a different entry point to the VPN and hope that I bypassed the bad router. I did and the downloads worked perfectly.
What I thought interesting was the “pissing match” I found that occurred on the forum. Here’s the link. http://trac.filezilla-project.org/ticket/4672. These people have enough education to be able to read, write and type but as far as any emotional intelligence is concerned – there isn’t any. Truthfully, it makes research tedious. If only Mr. Google could intervene with a solution, instead of suggesting I take a trip, buy a car or stay at a hotel…wait, isn’t that Mr. Bing?
Have fun.
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