Connecting to our FTP servers should be straightforward, but as with anything involving computers, things can conspire to make your work more complicated that it should be! The following are a few things that we have found to be the cause of most of the issues that our clients have experienced.

Check your Login details carefully

Your first port of call is to check that you have entered your username and password correctly. This should be easy to spot if this is the problem as the system will tell you straight away that your login details were incorrect. If you need a reminder on your password then please contact our support team.

Passive Vs Active connections

If you are sure that your details were entered correctly and you are not getting any messages about an incorrect username or password then your problems may be due to your settings in whatever FTP Client that you’re using. Our servers require a ‘Passive FTP’ connection to get through our firewall and some FTP Clients require you to explicitly specify this. What’s Passive FTP? Well put simply its the method used between client and server to establish what ports to use on the connection.

There are 2 types of FTP connection: Passive and Active. Active cannot be used on our servers as our firewalls will filter out the ports used – all you will see is your FTP program waiting for a response when logging in, but it will never get one as the request to login has already been blocked!  Passive FTP is more strict on what ports can be used and thus more firewall-friendly.

So what do you do if you experience this? We have found that using a good FTP client such as FileZilla should work ‘out of the box’ without having to delve into the configuration as the program will intelligently work out the right connection to use. However if you are experiencing problems in another FTP client then try looking in that program’s settings. You are looking for options that specify Active or Passive mode – this may for example come under a subsection called ‘Connection’. Make sure Passive mode is selected if there is a choice between the two.

Windows as the FTP Client

It’s even possible to use Windows itself as the FTP client (XP, Vista, Windows 7) and this works for some people (but being windows it can be a bit temperamental – it’ll work fine for some but not for others ). Simply open an explorer window (NB not an internet explorer window, just an explorer window that you use to browse your local files e.g. by clicking on ‘My Computer’) Type the address into the Address Bar: ftp.match2lists.com – you should then be presented with a Log On box. Enter your details and you should be able to view your FTP area like any other windows folder and copy/move/delete files as normal, but note that if you are copying over the top of another file we have found that it’s best practice to first delete the file that you would be overwriting. Dedicated FTP software handles these situations much better and will ask you for confirmation and which file to use.

Note that Windows also has a Passive FTP option that is worth checking if you experience problems. It can be found in (Windows XP, other versions may vary)  ’Internet Options’ either via Control Panel or under the ‘Tools -> Internet Options’ Menu. Go to the Advance Tab and under the Browsing subheading you will find an option ‘Use Passive FTP’. Make sure this is selected.

Still not working?

If you are still experiencing problems then it may be your own firewall that is blocking your ftp connection. Windows has a built in firewall but this usually doesn’t block FTP. You can try adding an exception that will always allow your FTP client though the firewall – this can be done in Control Panel (Windows XP) -> Windows Firewall -> Exceptions. Click Add program and find your FTP Client in the list, then add it.

Also any third-party Firewall software may need to be checked. A good test to see if this is the problem is to temporarily turn this software off and check if you can access FTP (You can do the same with Windows Firewall). If it now works then you need to add the exceptions in the third-party firewall program and turn it back on – it’s not a good idea to have to turn it off each time for FTP use as this increases your security risk and you may forget to turn it back on! See help/documentation on the third-party program to see how to add exceptions.

If your company’s network firewall is blocking you however, you will need to ask your network administrator about giving you access to FTP connections.

If all else fails

If you have tried everything at this point, are still having trouble and have a dedicated IT department then they may be able to resolve any issues. If not then contacting your ISP to find the problem may be an option. Otherwise our support team are happy to help you get your data to us and explore other options on how to do this.