FTP Problems

Hello, I have a problem...here goes...

I am trying to upload a webpage to my isp provided webspace (charter communications). I am running a winxp machine, updates are current, and also run firefox for my browser, using FireFTP as my ftp client.

I used this setup last Tuesday and all worked well, but not today.

Here is what I have done to troubleshoot.

1. connect my laptop via cable directly to cable modem, ftp works
2. connect my laptop via cable to wireless router, ftp doesn't work
3. connect my laptop via wireless to WR, ftp doesn't work
4. Put my laptop in the DMZ on WR, ftp doesn't work
5. put my laptop in DMZ, and also disabled firewall on laptop, ftp doesn't work
6. take laptop out of dmz, re-enabled firewall, ftp still doesn't work
7. connect using alternate method (not charter cable modem), tried using my Blackberry as a modem, ftp works

So from here I am assuming that it isn't a windows firewall issue, since #1 and #7 worked without issue.

8. try opening port 21 on router to pass the ftp traffic, ftp doesn't work
9. open port 21 on router and in windows firewall, ftp doesn't work
10. reset router to factory settings, ftp doesn't work
11. went through #4 - #6 again, ftp didn't work
12. reloaded my configuration file to the router, ftp didn't work

I'm out of ideas, anyone else have anything I should try???

Thanks for reading, sorry for the long post, just didn't want to leave anything out.

Wingrider78

 

Nice troubleshooting!

What happened between last Tuesday and today? Anything?

Things seem to be pointing to the router. Either it's blocking the site or the ISP is blocking the router (or one of its settings).

 

Thanks for the input...nothing has changed. Also, both my laptop and my desktop pcs are affected by this issue, so it isn't a program or anything that was installed on either machine that is causing this, IMHO anyway.

1. if the isp is blocking my router, wouldn't more things be blocked, not just the traffic over port 21?

2. if it is the router, besides putting it in the DMZ to rule out port blocking by the router, what else could it be?

I just did a tracert and here are the results...

C:\Documents and Settings\Home>tracert webpages.charter.net

Tracing route to webpages.charter.net [209.225.8.65]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.10.1
2 9 ms 8 ms 9 ms 10.156.224.1
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * ^C
C:\Documents and Settings\Home>tracert webpages.charter.net

Tracing route to webpages.charter.net [209.225.8.65]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.10.1
2 12 ms 10 ms 11 ms 10.156.224.1
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * ^C
C:\Documents and Settings\Home>

It looks like the traffic is going through the router okay, but being blocked after that.....

EDIT - just looked up the 10.156.224.1, it appears to be a IANA blackhole server. I traced other websites, google, yahoo, etc and they all go to that blackhole server and everything after that is timed out....but the kicker is that those other sites work, ftp does not.

Ideas?

 

It looks similar to the problems I had a year ago. Lasted for several months, then it just fixed itself. No idea what the cause or solution was. Sorry I can't help.

 

The IP address you mentioned as the "black hole" is part of a restricted IP range. That is, it is for local use only and will not reach the internet.

Try doing the tracert while connected directly to the modem. My guess is that 192.168.10.1 is your wireless router so it would not appear when wired directly to the modem. So, 10.156.224.1 would be the internal address used by the modem. There would be another IP address used by the modem to the internet but you would probably need to use the modem's configuration tools to see that. This is the primary function of a DSL or Cable modem. It is called NAT - Network Address Translation. Basically, it allows you to have one or more ranges of IP addresses on your local network in the ranges 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x while only using the single IP address allocated by your ISP for internet access.

Unless you have a complex network setup on your wireless router, I would try resetting it to the factory settings and starting again.

good luck.

 

FTP uses two connections. Port 21 is the command connection, which works. In active mode, the data connection is made in the opposite direction, so when you use a router/firewall, it tends to get blocked. I.e., try switching to passive mode. Your ftp client should have an option for that.

As for your tracert, it doesn't necessarily mean anything. Often this ICMP messages get dropped. Your router is probably configured to discard them for security reasons.

Don't worry about the "black hole".

 

Hey all, thanks for the help. Sorry to say none of it helped solve the problem. I was just going to give up and resign to the fact that the FTP wouldn't work unless I took the router out of the loop, so I was going to hook up my BB and upload some files, but thought I would give it one last try....and it worked. Still nothing had changed, but it at least works again, for now. A couple of notes though...

pjaffe - you were guessing that the internal address being used by my modem was the 10.xxxxx, that isn't quite right. my internal IPs are 192.168.10.xxx. The trace was showing that from my pc to the router (192.168.10.1) then out to 10.xxxx, so that is an external device from my household....

Husbus - I wasn't 'worried' about the blackhole, just listed it for info.

Thanks again for the help....