Comments on: Weave me a dream. Weave, damn you!

Question: Weave me a dream. Weave, damn you!

Acetylene — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 20:07:09 -0800

Dreamweaver 8 (on OS X 10.3.9) seems to have forgotten how to authenticate via SFTP, and at the worst possible time. Help!

Recently I set up a new site in Dreamweaver, to be uploaded to a dedicated server on which I also host several other sites, many of them managed in Dreamweaver. The new site failed to authenticate -- but more worryingly, none of my other sites will authenticate now, either, and I didn't change any of their settings. I can still log into ssh via command line and sftp via Cyberduck, both using the same username and password I'm trying in Dreamweaver.

The error I get from Dreamweaver is: "An FTP error occurred - cannot make connection to host. Your login or password is incorrect. Please check your connection information." My SSH logs on the server are no help, either -- if I give Dreamweaver a bad username, I do get an "Invalid user" log entry, so I know a connection is being made, but if the information is correct in Dreamweaver I get no log entries at all on the server.

I've tried using a different (valid) username and password. I've tried switching to a different server -- the only servers Dreamweaver is able to log into are ones that use regular FTP rather than SFTP, and I'd rather not enable FTP on my server. I tried trashing the preferences and deleting the relevant entries in Keychain. I've tried different subdirectories on the server, and checked the permissions on the existing directories. Nothing works. Any other ideas?

By: Rothko

Rothko — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 20:11:09 -0800

Reinstall DW?

By: Acetylene

Acetylene — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 20:36:52 -0800

Just tried that, Rothko, and still no love. Thanks anyway.

Anyone else?

By: jazon

jazon — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 20:38:48 -0800

is your path to the location of the web files on the server correct in the Dreamweaver hosts set up? It may be making a connection but not able to find the path to the files.

By: Acetylene

Acetylene — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 20:43:36 -0800

Yeah, the path is correct -- I've even tried specifying the full path (i.e. /home/myusername/mydirectory ). It was working a couple of days ago on the other sites I manage, with no changes between then and now, but now those don't work, either. And when the path has been a problem in the past, it gave an error message specifically about not being able to find the specified directory -- this time I'm getting an authentication error.

By: misterbrandt

misterbrandt — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 20:57:17 -0800

The DW newsgroups are pretty active. This might be something you want to try asking over there?

By: Acetylene

Acetylene — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 21:16:06 -0800

Thanks for the tip, misterbrandt; I've now posted my question there as well.

By: AmbroseChapel

AmbroseChapel — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 23:56:41 -0800

Maybe it's the firewall preventing it?

Have you upgraded OS X recently? A security upgrade? The firewall might be blocking certain ports. Although that wouldn't explain how the other apps can do it.

By: AmbroseChapel

AmbroseChapel — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 23:57:47 -0800

Oh and forgot to say, Passive FTP setting would be worth checking.

By: AmbroseChapel

AmbroseChapel — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 00:13:21 -0800

Going for the triple ... there's a note about this in DreamWeaver Tech Support. But it assumes there's something wrong on the server.

By: Sharcho

Sharcho — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 03:53:50 -0800

Did you try connecting with one of the other SFTP clients?
Did you try connecting from another computer?

By: Acetylene

Acetylene — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 06:47:02 -0800

AmbroseChapel: no firewall. There was an OS X security upgrade recently, so I guess that's a possibility, although it doesn't explain why I'm able to connect in other apps. Passive FTP is grayed out when Secure FTP is selected. And I do have PasswordAuthentication enabled on the server.

Scharco: yes, Cyberduck is another SFTP client (first one listed in your link, in fact), and as I mentioned, it connects just fine. Other computers are able to connect, as well, though I haven't tried installing Dreamweaver on another computer yet. I'll try that from work today.

Maybe this is the final motivation I need to buy OS X 10.4 and start with a fresh install.

By: Sharcho

Sharcho — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 17:24:46 -0800

Maybe try to log in to OS X with a different username.