[thelist] ftp upload stuck problem

[Pieter Roosens]

>>>> To other servers I have no problem but here uploading with any ftp-
>>>> program (on my Mac OSX) got stuck (freezes ..) but then the file is
>>>> uploaded indeed.
>>>> It seems that my system doesn't receive an "end" signal?
>>>> The support guys tell me that it could be the connection ...?!
>>>
>> ... I found some help file on their support pages which says to
>> change all text files to upload as binary! That worked well with a
>> test file!
>
> Yes, you should upload all your files as binary, even "text"  
> files.  The
> terms are misleading.  In the case of FTP transfers, "binary" mode
> means: Send the file exactly as it is, byte for byte.  This also means
> that the file's size when it gets to the server will be exactly the  
> same
> as it is on your local machine.
>
> FTP "text mode" actually means: while transferring this file, try to
> guess what the local line-ending conventions are for my operating
> system, and then try to guess what the line-ending conventions are for
> the server operating system, and change the contents of my file while
> transferring it from using local linefeeds to remote linefeeds.
>
> In the case of "windows" text files (which use 2-byte CR+LF line
> endings) this means that when transferring a text file to a UNIX  
> server,
> CR+LF character sequences would be replaced with just a LF, making  
> a 500
> line file 500 bytes smaller once it reaches the server.  Macs on the
> other hand (thru OS 9) used a single CR as a line separator.  So  
> Mac FTP
> programs tried to convert these CR's to LF's, but that an cause
> problems, too.
>
> The problems that FTP text-mode attempted to solve are largely  
> solved in
> modern software, and the use of text- or ASCII-transfer-mode now  
> usually
> just introduces more problems of its own (as you've seen).  Macs and
> PC's have plenty of software that can create text files with UNIX
> linefeeds (nearly all HTML and code editors do that now) and, if that
> wasn't enough, most UNIX text-processing systems (most notably web
> servers, PHP and perl source code interpreters) have long been updated
> to tolerate PC and Mac linefeeds with no problems.
>
>> ... But now I don't know if it's a good thing to upload "all"
>> text files in binary. Normally it's wrong, right? I want to upload
>> Joomla CMS there .. a bunch of php files ... Won't this harm Joomla?
>
> Not just all text files... all files!  Seriously, turn of text mode
> completely (it was probably off to begin with by default, before
> *someone* turned it on...)  Do all of your FTP transfers in so-called
> binary mode.  Don't even think of them as "text" and "binary" mode --
> those names are misleading.  Think of text mode as: "screw-up-my-files
> mode"  and binary mode "delivery-my-files-correctly mode"! :-)
>
> When using text mode, your ftp program was "hanging" because the  
> server
> was not getting same file that was being sent.  When the server says
> "10,000 bytes received", and the size of the same file (with 100 lines
> of text) on the local machine is 10,000 + 100 bytes... some program  
> got
> confused, believing that the transfer was complete, and was waiting  
> for
> the server to finish, which it never did (because it already had).  If
> you transfer images in text mode they will be corrupted, too.   
> FrontPage
> didn't have this problem because it *always* transfers files  
> unchanged,
> whether using HTTP or FTP (Microsoft products tend to lack any sort
> "text mode", because that would acknowledge that other (possibly  
> better)
> text file formats even exist :-)
>
> Hope this helps!
>
> -dave

Wow Dave, that's a really complete and clear explanation!
I'm sure that will do.
I'll turn my complete brain in binary mode from now on ;-)
Thanks so much.
Also thanks Joel, Erik and Stephen.

Pieter