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Problem with FTP and PNG files


Nick

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I'm having some trouble uploading my site and I have no idea why.

 

Using a trial version of a program called Smart FTP and all's fine until it comes to a PNG file. It then goes through the motions but just hangs and eventually the server boots me off. When I log back in I see the file is there, but with no filesize details.

 

I had a look on the net and found that PNG files should be transferred in Binary mode. Smart FTP does this for you automatically but I set it manually anyway. No luck. Even tried renaming the file but that doesn't help.

 

Downloaded a free version of Coffee Cup and had the same problem. Tring to use FTPX at the moment but now I'm being refused a connection! Already 3 clients connected, so I assume my other attempts didn't logout properly.

 

This isn't the first time this has happened, did it the first time I used it. Since then it's been ok though.

 

Same with my MAC. Been using a program called Fetch until this morning when I had the same problem.

 

Could this be a problem with the host??

 

Really starting to loose my patience..!

 

Help appreciated, thanks....

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definatly sounds more of a problem with the host. maybe they don't allow png files. are they images for a website? if they are convert them to jpeg as the will download on a page quicker.

or if you are putting the png files on there for storage, then zip them up first, this may fool the host.

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Certainly sounds like a problem with the host. SmartFTP is very good except for the annoying nag screen every time you start it up.

 

Is it just a particular PNG file, or any PNG file? Could the filename be a little unusual and causing a buggy FTP daemon to die/hang?

 

Most FTP clients will send everything in binary anyway.

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I'd do what Edd suggests, try uploading it as something else, and renaming it once its on the server, just to check if its the file extension it has problems with or the file format itself.

 

Sounds a bit weird, as PNG are just image files right?

 

Yeah they are images but they can contain script (but then so can GIF's so if they are allowed I don't see why PNG's aren't).

 

It's something else, I'd lay money on it.

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Certainly sounds like a problem with the host. SmartFTP is very good except for the annoying nag screen every time you start it up.
Tools / Settings / Interface has a switch to turn the splash screen off.

 

 

Edit: But it won't turn the nag off when your version is about to expire. :(

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It seems to be getting stuck on one file, as it uploads many other PNG files without a problem.

 

The filename is "imageEffectsAbove_Nick's-019.png" and 100kb

 

The site is created in iWeb and this file generated automatically, which accounts for the bizarre name. I thought the ' or the length was the problem, so I renamed it to "test.PNG" but it still failed.

 

I also zipped it up and uploaded it ok, but once it's on there I can't work out how to unzip it ! Do some FTP clients have this option built in? I'm very new to all this, don't use FTP much.

 

Plenty of space left on the host too.

 

I'm at home now and on the MAC starting from scratch. See if it works this time... If not I'll try converting it to a JPG.

 

Thanks for the help :)

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How strange! As far as I know (not a web expert I'm afraid), you can't unzip at the far end. There's some functionality in *some* FTP daemons for a SITE command like "SITE exec", so in theory there could be a "site exec unzip test.zip", or something, but really, it's just not going to happen.

Your PHP scripts could do the unzipping or something.

Some shared-hosting providers allow you to upload/download individual files via their web management/admin console.

 

You could try renaming the file to test.notapng or something, upload then rename, but that's not going to help from what you've said. Perhaps they have some antivirus software running on the host which is mistaking the file for a virus. Try opening the file in photoshop or whatever and re-saving with altered compression settings, so that in effect the file becomes a totally different file internally, even though the actual image will be the same.

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Well, I've just uploaded my site from my MAC without any problems, including the offending file :blink:

 

I'm glad it's finally done, but it's bugging me why it didn't work before. Maybe I've never successfully uploaded it form my work PC and only from my MAC, as I've been messing around a lot recently. Really not sure now.

 

Anyway, appreciate all the help and suggestions. :)

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but I thought you said it didn't work from the Mac either?

 

Anyway, good to hear you sorted it!

 

It didn't on the morning when the problems started. Then tried it when I got to work from my PC and no joy, then tried again in the evening on my MAC and it was fine.

 

I don't know, one of those things I guess.:shrug:

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It has an apostrophe in it - you probably removed it.

"imageEffectsAbove_Nick's-019.png"

 

No OS would be overly happy (although they will allow it sometimes).

:yeahthat:

 

Dont put any apostophies in file names.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(see what I did there?)

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:D Can't we become spelling mods? ;)

 

Perhaps the Mac client is smart and sends an escape code (e.g \ for some shells), and SmartFTP isn't so smart after all. There's still a chance other things are going to barf on that file from now on so you'd do well to rename your iWeb project from Nick's or whatever it is to something else so that no files have the apostrophe in their name.

 

Although (as far as I know) most all filesystems will allow apostrophes, most interpreters and shells will probably treat it as a field/parameter delimiter or something, so it'd need to be escaped to be dealt with.

 

e.g., you couldn't just ssh into your hosting account and delete that file now. It'd fail.

You'd (probably) have to do:

rm imageEffectsAbove_Nick\'s-019.png (notice the backslash).

Same would no doubt apply to many FTP clients or servers.

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:D Can't we become spelling mods? ;)

 

Perhaps the Mac client is smart and sends an escape code (e.g \ for some shells), and SmartFTP isn't so smart after all. There's still a chance other things are going to barf on that file from now on so you'd do well to rename your iWeb project from Nick's or whatever it is to something else so that no files have the apostrophe in their name.

 

Although (as far as I know) most all filesystems will allow apostrophes, most interpreters and shells will probably treat it as a field/parameter delimiter or something, so it'd need to be escaped to be dealt with.

 

e.g., you couldn't just ssh into your hosting account and delete that file now. It'd fail.

You'd (probably) have to do:

rm imageEffectsAbove_Nick\'s-019.png (notice the backslash).

Same would no doubt apply to many FTP clients or servers.

 

You are (of course) correct I just didn't expect him to understand the difference between an interpreter (which may also consider it the start of a comment) and the OS itself.

Also......did he say it was on a nix box? it might be windows?!

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I've found where it's getting "Nick's" from. Some of the pictures my mate took of my GTR were named Nick's, and this file is an image effect (reflection) with an automatically generated name.

 

I didn't even notice, been too busy.

 

Simple solution - rename the pictures. :)

 

Cheers.

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