Want to FTP an old disk to my FIL, can't.
January 3, 2010 3:40 PM Subscribe
Getting "access is denied" or "an operation was attempted on something that is not a socket." when trying to FTP the My Documents directory of different computer.
I took my Father in-law's old hard drive (no idea what went wrong with the machine, but he now has a new one) home with me after the holidays, with the intention of making any files that were salvageable on the disk available to him. Thankfully, all the documents in the "owners documents" folder are intact, and I can navigate and open all the files he wants with no issue.
I figured that the best way to get the 10GB of files to him was to host them from my computer via FTP, something I have done before using Cerebrus FTP server.
I was able to set it up with the Owners Documents folder added to the root, and using Firefox I can log in to the root. When I click the link to the My Documents folder I lose my session, with the FTP log saying "Unable to open file: Access is denied." followed by two 'unprintable character' squares that I can't copy/paste, so I can't tell what they are. This comes immediately after FF sends a RETR command for the folder, which according to this is a bug in Firefox. No problem, I thought, my FIL uses Internet Explorer.
Sadly, IE works even less well- I cannot get to the root page. The error on the server is "PASV command failed: an operation was attempted on something that is not a socket." (Also followed by the two unprintable characters). Chrome behaves the same way. I've tried all of this from two machines inside my network with the same result.
I've taken ownership of all the files in the folder and tried copying it to a new location on disk in case windows is treating the folder specially in some way.
This is all on Windows XP home. I have the fix implemented that allows me to see the security tab (and thus, take ownership of files), but I am out of ideas to try. Any suggestions?
My tech level is high, but my Father-in-law's is not, so any solution should be easy for the end-user. Non FTP suggestions are welcomed, although I'd love to figure this problem out too.
I took my Father in-law's old hard drive (no idea what went wrong with the machine, but he now has a new one) home with me after the holidays, with the intention of making any files that were salvageable on the disk available to him. Thankfully, all the documents in the "owners documents" folder are intact, and I can navigate and open all the files he wants with no issue.
I figured that the best way to get the 10GB of files to him was to host them from my computer via FTP, something I have done before using Cerebrus FTP server.
I was able to set it up with the Owners Documents folder added to the root, and using Firefox I can log in to the root. When I click the link to the My Documents folder I lose my session, with the FTP log saying "Unable to open file: Access is denied." followed by two 'unprintable character' squares that I can't copy/paste, so I can't tell what they are. This comes immediately after FF sends a RETR command for the folder, which according to this is a bug in Firefox. No problem, I thought, my FIL uses Internet Explorer.
Sadly, IE works even less well- I cannot get to the root page. The error on the server is "PASV command failed: an operation was attempted on something that is not a socket." (Also followed by the two unprintable characters). Chrome behaves the same way. I've tried all of this from two machines inside my network with the same result.
I've taken ownership of all the files in the folder and tried copying it to a new location on disk in case windows is treating the folder specially in some way.
This is all on Windows XP home. I have the fix implemented that allows me to see the security tab (and thus, take ownership of files), but I am out of ideas to try. Any suggestions?
My tech level is high, but my Father-in-law's is not, so any solution should be easy for the end-user. Non FTP suggestions are welcomed, although I'd love to figure this problem out too.
Access denied in XP suggests using cacls.exe
cacls /? prints the usage message (it's a command-line program)
The short answer is:
cacls file-i-cant-access /G Everyone:F
and
cacls folder-i-cant-access-files-in /T /G Everyone:F
posted by hexatron at 4:30 PM on January 3, 2010
cacls /? prints the usage message (it's a command-line program)
The short answer is:
cacls file-i-cant-access /G Everyone:F
and
cacls folder-i-cant-access-files-in /T /G Everyone:F
posted by hexatron at 4:30 PM on January 3, 2010
When you took ownership of all the files in the folder, did you need to do the thing where you replace permissions with ones giving you full control? If so, you might have ended up as the only user with permission to access those files. If your FTP server is running as a system service, it will be using the inbuilt SYSTEM account for file access and you will need to add permissions for that account as well.
posted by flabdablet at 4:45 PM on January 3, 2010
posted by flabdablet at 4:45 PM on January 3, 2010
Response by poster: It works in SmartFTP, so hopefully I can walk him through setting that up. I did set the permissions to everything for myself and system.
posted by Four Flavors at 5:45 PM on January 3, 2010
posted by Four Flavors at 5:45 PM on January 3, 2010
My all-purpose response for any given FTP problem is, "Switch from active to passive mode, or from passive to active." It sounds like a total brush-off, but I swear it fixes about 92% of FTP problems.
In the case of your dad, he would need to use SmartFTP obviously, since IE doesn't (so far as I know) allow you to switch modes. (If he can grok FTP using IE, I'm sure he can handle SmartFTP.)
posted by ErikaB at 6:17 PM on January 3, 2010
In the case of your dad, he would need to use SmartFTP obviously, since IE doesn't (so far as I know) allow you to switch modes. (If he can grok FTP using IE, I'm sure he can handle SmartFTP.)
posted by ErikaB at 6:17 PM on January 3, 2010
Best answer: You and he might find it easier to install Hamachi at both ends, then just do it with standard Windows file sharing.
If you're going to stay with FTP, the FireFTP extension for Firefox is competent and very easy to set up.
posted by flabdablet at 6:18 PM on January 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
If you're going to stay with FTP, the FireFTP extension for Firefox is competent and very easy to set up.
posted by flabdablet at 6:18 PM on January 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
"Hamachi works well" echoing flabdablet. It's also a breeze to set up.
posted by anadem at 10:04 PM on January 3, 2010
posted by anadem at 10:04 PM on January 3, 2010
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Have him try it with a zip of the files - you should be able to talk him through ftp'ing one file at the DOS prompt.
posted by rfs at 4:28 PM on January 3, 2010