The most common cause of FTP problems is that passive FTP transfer mode is not turned on in your FTP program. "Passive mode" is usually needed:
(There may be other situations where it's needed, too — try the solution below even if you don't think you fall into any of these categories.)
"Passive mode" is especially likely to be the problem if your FTP program seems to connect to our server, but is then unable to transfer a file or show a list of files. It's also the problem if you see an error message mentioning a "PORT" command.
To solve these kinds of connection problems, turn on passive FTP transfer mode in your FTP program:
If you use a different FTP program, it almost certainly has a checkbox to turn on "passive mode" in either the connection setup screen or the program preferences screen. Consult the documentation for your FTP program if you're unsure how to do it. (Look for the words passive or PASV in the settings; the checkbox is often labeled "PASV FTP" or something similar.)
Turning on passive mode almost always fixes FTP connection problems.
The first thing we recommend is turning off any firewall software as a test (this includes the Norton AntiVirus "Internet Worm Protection" feature, which is really a firewall). If this fixes the problem, consult your firewall's documentation or support to learn how to allow FTP connections with the firewall turned on.
If that doesn't solve it, try connecting to a completely different public FTP server. This will show whether the problem is just with the connection to our FTP server or if your computer is having problems connecting to any FTP servers. An example of a public FTP server is:
If your computer cannot connect to that server, then either your FTP software is not working correctly, or something on your computer (probably a firewall or other security software) is blocking all FTP connections. You may want to try using other FTP software such as the free FileZilla.
If you still having problems connecting, try making a text connection as described in the next section.
These instructions explain how to make a text-based connection to our servers, mimicking what your FTP program usually does invisibly. This allows you to see exactly what response our servers send back to your FTP program, and we can use that information to determine the source of the problem.
You can do this in two easy steps:
To open a command window:
Once the command window is open, type this text and press "Enter":
telnet ftp.tigertech.net 21
You should see these two lines (among others) in the response:
220-This is a private system - No anonymous login 220 You will be disconnected after 15 minutes of inactivity.
If you don't see these lines in the response, contact us and let us know exactly what you do see, because it means that something is blocking your computer's connections to our FTP server. Please be sure to copy and paste all of the command window text into your message to us, since it's all important. We'll do our best to help you figure out what's causing the problem, although in some cases you may need to ask your network administrator.
(By the way, you can just close the command window when you're finished with the tests above.)