Why ftpwebrequest fails to access ftp site

Question

Hi,

I have ftp site with username and password, and I can access it in FileZilla. However, when accessing it in FtpWebRequest class in C#, it gives exception "The remote server returned an error: (550) File unavailable (e.g., file not found, no access)". The code is,

                FtpWebRequest request = (FtpWebRequest)FtpWebRequest.Create("ftp://ftp.novusexpertus.com");
                request.Method = WebRequestMethods.Ftp.ListDirectory;
                request.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(username, password);

What is the problem?

Thanks

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York

Answer 1

I think u r missing last slash(/) in URL

"ftp://www.contoso.com/"

Refer this link for detail

Answer 2

Hi, 

I would check

Is files have permission to access?

Is default ftp port number has been changed? if so you can specify "ftp://ftp.novustestlab.com:xx"

Any firewall issue?

also enable tracing to debug exact error. check from here 

I hope this helps you...

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Answer 3

From the MSDN docs for FtpWebRequest:

The URI may be relative or absolute. If the URI is of the form "ftp://contoso.com/%2fpath" (%2f is an escaped '/'), then the URI is absolute, and the current directory is /path. If, however, the URI is of the form "ftp://contoso.com/path", first the .NET Framework logs into the FTP server (using the user name and password set by the Credentials property), then the current directory is set to <userlogindirectory>/path.</userlogindirectory>

So, adding the final '/' to the URI may do the trick, as it will tell the FtpWebRequest to start with the root directory of the site.

Answer 4

Actually in ftp.novusexpertus.com, I create a folder "flipbook" and a subfolder "Book" in it. I also create a ftp account with username and password using "flipbook" as root. But when using code below, I still get exception "The remote server returned an error: (550) File unavailable (e.g., file not found, no access)",

     FtpWebRequest request = (FtpWebRequest)FtpWebRequest.Create("ftp://ftp.novusexpertus.com/flipbook//Book");
                request.Method = WebRequestMethods.Ftp.ListDirectory;
                request.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(username, password);

I can access ftp.novusexpertus.com/flipbook from FileZilla. It is a weird problem. Any thought?

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York

Answer 5

Hi Greg,

Where is <userlogindirectory> defined?

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York

Answer 6

Hi,

Does it work from your code with ftp://ftp.novustestlab.com/flipbook/ (that is try the EXACT same thing in FileZilla and your own code, for now you tell us that it works with FileZilla but your code fails with *another* directory and you don't tell if it works with this particular one using FileZilla so this is a bit confusing) ?

Also your code shows //Book rather than /Book. Not sure if this is a typo or really part of your code ? You could also try ftp://ftp.novustestlab.com/flipbook/Book/ (without // but with the final /).

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Answer 7

This is solved. The reason is that since I set the ftp account at "flipbook" as root, it works as,

FtpWebRequest.Create("ftp://ftp.novusexpertus.com/Book");

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York