Many of the files at my site are no longer showing up when I FTP to it.
They still appear on the web, and I even tried useing Telnet and the Unix ls command - they are definitely still there.
The permissions look OK to me (read for everyone), unless there are some advanced Unix permissions I am not familiar with?
I have e-mailed my Host for support but they are taking a while to get back to me.
If anyone has an idea what might be going on here, I'd really appreciate any advice you can give me.

Simon,

Two common potential problems come to mind. Even if you composed your site in Windows, as is likely, you should follow Unix conventions in naming files. That means following the proper case (using all lowercase is good and makes for consistency). It also means no spaces in file names.

You will be able to see files that don't follow those rules on your local PC, but they will not appear in a browser if your server runs on Linux or Unix (as the majority do). They will appear i any list of files seen via FTP, but aill not appear via the browser as they are not being accessed. My picture.GIF and mypicture.GIF won't work if the link is to mypicture.gif.

Duster,

Whilst you are correct, I believe the problem is the other way around (available via the browser, but not listed in FTP).

Simon,

Whilst I know *very* little about UNIX/LINUX, the fact that you can access them from the browser and telnet suggests that something is wrong with the FTP service only. Maybe your host has set a funny setting (can't think of one though)? Has your host checked the FTP service is listing from the correct location? i.e. When you access via FTP it calls files from \ftproot down, whilst other access methods call from \wwwroot down. Wouldn't explain why you get some and not others though (maybe an old site version?)

Thanks for the replies.
Yes, they show up on the web, but not in FTP.
I'm sure the FTP directory is the same as the web one, as I have tried uploading a test file.
I would just reupload all the files, but one of the "files" not showing up is actually a sub-directory. Although there is no sign of it, when I try and create it again, I get "file exists".
I haven't heard back from my host yet, but being the weekend probably hasn't helped.

Just thought of another cause, might be a red herring. Do you log in as a different user in FTP that might have the rights blocked for that user?

Oops, you're right. The problem is opposite that I was addressing. It may be the ownership of the files that results in some not being seen. The chown command can fix that easily enough.

Simon,

Check to see if your web host upgraded to a new version of wu_ftpd.

The problem might be within the new version of wu_ftpd (wu-2.6.0) and higher on the web server. We noticed this problem when we upgraded to the new wu_ftpd package as well.

Below is a quote from the wu_ftpd web site:


Some ftp clients improperly use the NLST and LIST commands. NLST was intended to show files only for retrieval using the mget command. LIST was intended to show everything in human-readable form. Earlier versions of the wu-ftpd did not correctly interpret the RFC which defines these commands and many ftp clients were written incorrectly and do not use the definitions in the RFC. Starting wu-ftpd 2.6.0, the interpretation of NLST versus LIST ftp commands has been changed to what is the right interpretation. NLST lists retrievable files for the ftp mget command, LIST lists all files for a human reader. Suggested fix: fix the client software, or train the users to use ls -al (or dir) in a command-line client to get a listing of the files and directories.

If your host is using a RaQ2 there is a problem. One of our dedicated server owners had it happen when too many user names were placed on the machine. If the list of admin users grows too much the line in the group file gets beyong 1056 which causes all to lose visibility of their files in FTP - really odd and it was tough to track down.
Another reason RaQs suck (IMHO!)



------------------
Chris Marks
KBS Web Hosting (http://www.netfronts.com)
http://www.netfronts.com

It appears that the missing files were caused by a bug in my FTP program.
Sorry - I really should have tried more than one FTP program before posting!
I have been using the same program for several years without any problems. I think it is something to do with the date of files - maybe some kind of delayed millenium bug thing. I have now downloaded the up to date version of my original FTP program and it works fine.
Thanks to everone who tried to help!

Glad to hear that everything is working for you now.

I'm experiencing a similar problem. When I try to access a client's account via FTP, I cannot see their files as I should. Checking them via SSH shows that the files exist and that the permissions (both ownership and read/write/execute) are correct. Even logging into their cPanel shows that the files exist and can be read and modified. I'm drawing a blank as to what else I can do to make this work.

Anybody know of anything I could try on this cPanel/RHE server?

TIA! :)

My FTP client was using NLST rather than LIST to list the directories and folders on the sever.

Suddently my server, ipowerweb, must have changed something (updated its ftp server perhaps) such that NLST no longer works.

There was an "advanced setting" allow me to specify the command used to obtain a list of the files.

I wish ipowerweb would set up a mailing list with notifications of such upgrades. They are fine but rather secretive.

If you can read Japanese this page shows the set up of my fttp client, giving the various ways of obtaining a list of the files.
http://www2.biglobe.ne.jp/~sota/ffftp-qa/qa-6.html

Tim