"could not start transfer" ftp upload error

@rhsundergroundAug 03.2008

i’m backing up my music library and i have so far successfully uploaded about 2100 songs but roughly 200 don’t upload; filezilla says that it “could not start transfer.” i can’t find any discernable pattern, as some of the files are .mp3, some are .m4a and there are no character patterns that seem to trigger an error.

here’s an example log readout:

[CODE]Status: Starting upload of C:My MusicBob DylanMusic From the Motion Picture The Royal6 Wigwam.m4a Command: CWD /directoriesblahblahetc/Bob Dylan/Music From the Motion Picture The Royal Response: 550 /directoriesblahblahetc/Bob Dylan/Music From the Motion Picture The Royal: No such file or directory Command: SIZE /directoriesblahblahetc/Bob Dylan/Music From the Motion Picture The Royal/06 Wigwam.m4a Response: 150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for pets.mp3 Response: 550 /directoriesblahblahetc/Bob Dylan/Music From the Motion Picture The Royal/06 Wigwam.m4a: No such file or directory Command: PASV Response: 227 Entering Passive Mode (208,113,253,8,202,110). Command: STOR /directoriesblahblahetc/Bob Dylan/Music From the Motion Picture The Royal/06 Wigwam.m4a Response: 550 /directoriesblahblahetc/Bob Dylan/Music From the Motion Picture The Royal/06 Wigwam.m4a: No such file or directory [/CODE]

i don’t know why it would give a 550 error, because everything always uploads fine except for now, when i’m uploading 82 Gb of files.

any ideas?

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7 Comments(s) _↴

@Stephen_PhilbinAug 03.2008 — #Only thing I could think of off the top of my head is the file names. Perhaps there's some irregular character in the file name or maybe the character encoding causes a problem?

Only other thing I can think of is that maybe your FTP server is somehow configured to reject files containing binary data matching a particulair sequence of bits.

Can't really think of anything else right now.

@rhsundergroundauthorAug 03.2008 — #Only thing I could think of off the top of my head is the file names. Perhaps there's some irregular character in the file name of maybe the character encoding causes a problem?
[/QUOTE]
i thought of that but i looked closely at the files and there are several that have non-english characters but the majority of them are all standard characters.

@Stephen_PhilbinAug 03.2008 — #Well from the output given by your FTP client there, it looks like either the directory your FTP client is telling the FTP server to put files into does not exist, or your FTP server does not have the required permissions to access the directory.

I'll assume you're using an FTP client with a graphical user interface which lists existing files and directories in a directory in a visual manner. If that's the case, then I'd think it a safe bet that the directory you're trying to put these files into is listed in the conversation between client and server (thus causing it to be displayed in the GUI representation), but when you actually try to place files in the directory, the server will have access denied and send a message to the client saying that there's no such directory.

Have you checked what your FTP server is and is not permitted to do on your host? I get the feeling it's probably down to the server's access rights.

@rhsundergroundauthorAug 03.2008 — #well the weird thing is that, for example, i can upload some files by bob dylan but not others. amongst the files that don't go through some have irregular characters and some don't.

@ray326Aug 03.2008 — #You can upload [B]some[/B] files into [B]Music From the Motion Picture The Royal[/B]?

@WebJoelAug 03.2008 — #06 Wigwam.m4a[/QUOTE] -is this the name of the file? Apart from 'whitespace' in name, maybe filenames beginning with a "number" cannot upload on that particular FTP? I have this problem with some FTP clients: they refuse to upload file/s beginning with a "numeral", [B]OR[/B], file with CAP extentions like "filename.[B]JPG[/B]" will NOT upload, but "filename.[B]jpg[/B]" will successfully upload.

This occurs with at least one FTP host that I use and has caused me much grief in the past, as I have to re-name all the files and all the referances to them (in the HTML document)...

Also... -just stabbin' away here ...does this particular FTP host allow "music files" to be stored there? Some FTP hosts refuse to accept music files for legal reasons...

But I really have no idea here... ?

@rhsundergroundauthorAug 04.2008 — #-is this the name of the file? Apart from 'whitespace' in name, maybe filenames beginning with a "number" cannot upload on that particular FTP? I have this problem with some FTP clients: they refuse to upload file/s beginning with a "numeral", [B]OR[/B], file with CAP extentions like "filename.[B]JPG[/B]" will NOT upload, but "filename.[B]jpg[/B]" will successfully upload.

This occurs with at least one FTP host that I use and has caused me much grief in the past, as I have to re-name all the files and all the referances to them (in the HTML document)...

Also... -just stabbin' away here ...does this particular FTP host allow "music files" to be stored there? Some FTP hosts refuse to accept music files for legal reasons...

But I really have no idea here... ?[/QUOTE]
dreamhost says:
DreamHost Web Hosting will exercise no control whatsoever over the content of the information passing through the network.[/QUOTE]

the vast majority of the files start out with a number, because that's how itunes automatically indexes them. one file that didn't transfer is named "underhandedtrick.wav," so that rules out the naming issue.