FileZilla Forums

Hi FIleZilla Forums...

It seems to me that our NAT router and the firewall has been set up correctly. However, Filezilla doesn't ever connect to Windows servers, but Unix servers work fine.

WHY? What could possibly be incorrect so that, while sftping to a Unix server works all the time, Windows servers time out all the time. FileZilla's Network configuration wizard... has never worked bc, I'm guessing, it is hosted on a Windows server. (After it failing and clicking Next>Finish it warns that the wizard failed, but saves the info/settings set.)

from the wizard:

Connecting to probe.filezilla-project.org
Connection established, waiting for welcome message.
Response: 220 FZ router and firewall tester ready
USER FileZilla
Response: 331 Give any password.
PASS 3.42.1
Response: 230 logged on.
Checking for correct external IP address
Retrieving external IP address from http://ip.filezilla-project.org/ip.php
Checking for correct external IP address
IP ###.###.###.### ###-###-###-###
Response: 200 OK
PREP #####
Response: 200 Using port #####, data token 1303798348
PORT ###,###,###,###,###,###
Response: 200 PORT command successful
LIST
Response: 150 opening data connection
Response: 503 Failure of data connection.
Server sent unexpected reply.
Connection closed

We are running Filezilla Client 3.42.1, if you didn't get that from the wizard's PASS, and it's on a Windows 7 machine. However, a Windows 10 machine in our house, fails to connect to the Windows servers too. It must be a router problem then, right? If so, does anyone have any clue as to what may be good to set or change on a router to enable ftping to Windows servers?


edit: changed the start of the title from FTP to SFTP, bc just figured out that FTP does work to windows servers. Sorry for the title mess up.

After reading https://www.codeproject.com/questions/1 ... nix-server, it is obvious that Unix is case insensitive... had forgotten that.

But, what is case sensitive about connecting to a Windows FTP server (besides the password and username)?

What does it say if you attempt to connect to one of your Windows machines?

When connecting to a Windows server it just says something like "Timed out..."; pretty much the same response that I received from the filezilla network configuration wizard.

Status: Connecting to ######################...
Response: fzSftp started, protocol_version=8
Command: open "##########@######################" 22
Error: Connection timed out after 20 seconds of inactivity
Error: Could not connect to server

However, ftp works splendidly on Windows servers. But, there must be some way to get sftp to work with windows servers too.

p.s. Oh, if I increase the time to 120 seconds... it will time out after 120 seconds when attempting sftping to windows servers. Unix servers make sftp instantaneous.

Do you actually have an SFTP server running on the Windows machine? While *NIX usually always runs an SFTP service of some sort, Windows does NOT.

sigh... I just learned this again... network solutions' windows servers don't come with sftp access. So that is why sftp doesn't work with my dad's windows server. So sorry to waste your time Tim... thank you for responding. I LOVE YOUR FILEZILLA!

p.s. so the filezilla network configuration wizard doesn't work for some reason... but it really doesn't matter to us bc we can ftp now. Making it so that I could save the options even though the wizard failed is super helpful! Thank you Tim Kosse!


ah ok, thanks boco, that makes sense... their windows servers don't run an sftp server.

The Network Config Wizard tests for the only FTP access mode where client configuration is required: Active Mode. Without extensive configuration, it'll always fail. That's not a big problem, as nearly all servers out there support Passive Mode, and FileZilla prefers it by default. Passive mode works out of the box and requires no client configuration, as there are only outgoing connections, client-side.