Unable to login to FTP [solved]

[Parables]

Hey folks- sorry if we're missing something obvious here.

Our site, esthargate.comicgenesis.com, is now online, and we're ready to start uploading material. Unfortunately, we can't log into the FTP. We used the FTP username and password provided in our welcome email, and pointed SmartFTP at the "workspace" folder.

SmartFTP gives us the following:

[16:13:48] SmartFTP v3.0.1012.15
[16:13:48] Resolving host name "esthargate.comicgenesis.com"
[16:13:48] Connecting to 66.220.2.20 Port: 21
[16:14:09] A socket operation was attempted to an unreachable host.
[16:14:09] Client closed the connection.
[16:14:09] Connect failed. Waiting to retry (30s)...
[16:14:39] Connection attempt 2...

and so forth, over and over. We tried using Internet Explorer to FTP; no help there.

Any ideas?

[Dr Neo Lao]

First, try using the built in WebFTP client (with instructions on use here).

This will give you two things: a basic FTP to get you started, and confirmation that your password works (sometimes the default password users are issued by the server don't work).

Assuming that works: once you know that you can access your account via ftp, you'll then be able to work out why third party programs do / don't work. I know that there is a setting that needs to be changed in SmartFTP in order to get it to work with CG, but I can't remember what it is (sorry).

Assuming that it does not work: first, determine why - if it says "password incorrect" but you're sure you're giving it the right password, then just change the ftp password. If it gives you a failed connection, try ftp.esthargate.comicgenesis.com (even though you're not supposed to do that).

If you can get the WebFTP Client to work but SmartFTP won't, then I recommend (and use) Filezilla - it's really easy and reliable.

[Parables]

Trying to use the WebFTP consistently gives us the following error message:

Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at siteadmin.comicgenesis.com:8080

Using ftp.esthargate.comicgenesis.com doesn't do anything either, either in SmartFTP or Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer says

A connection with the server cannot be established.

We're kind of mystified now. We can't think of anything blocking it on our end, like a firewall or anything.

[Dr Neo Lao]

I was able to get an ftp connection just now, so the server is running fine.

The only thing I can think of is to go somewhere else and see if you can connect from there (like a net cafe or a friend's house). If there was some kind of problem, you'd get a different error message. Being unable to find the server is a bit rare...

[Parables]

Got it! Turns out the problem was with a program we use called PeerGuardian2. Apparently it thinks that "Keenspot Entertainment" is some sort of adware/malware/antiP2P or something. It might be a good idea to ask them to take you off their block list.

Disabling the block allowed us to log in, but there's still some sort of glitch that we'll work on tomorrow.

[Parables]

Fixed! Thanks very much for your help.