About FTP Connections and Spectrum and RW7

Continuing the discussion from Publishing/connection anomalies:

I recently returned from a trip to HongKong and during my stay there accessed my web servers at GoDaddy from the hotel ISP and can report that I was able to connect with all 6 streams.

Where this brings me back to is that the problem is lurking somewhere in Spectrums domain.

Back home I again suffer the single stream FTP update from my Spectrum endpoint except this time I decided to use a PPTP tunnel too DC with Express VPN and got 6 “full connects”

So the problem only exists when FTP’ing via Spectrum and their local node.

I called up Spectrum feeling confident that I had an argument and ask them to find out whats going on. Their response was that because I am a residential customer I do not have a fixed IP address and then sent me a copy of their Terms and Conditions which mentions nothing about restricting FTP - and that although this is the case “its implied” Haha!!

So they suggested I get a fixed IP (ie business account) so they put me through to their Business Tech folks who laughed at what I had been told. They stated there is no difference to the FTP spec on residential and Business service. But maybe its my Arris modem…

The short term answer for me is to use VPN for FTP uploads

BTW - I tried to set up SFTP on GoDaddy and so far have not been able to get it to work. I think others reported similar experiences.

Seems the world is not as black and white about stuff like this as I had hoped.

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I have the same exact experience with Spectrum and make sure my VPN Unlimited account is active when I go to upload so I get all of the streams. I don’t know why Spectrum limits this either. Seems strange but it is definitely a problem with Spectrum and not with RW.

I’m on Spectrum and never have any problem with 6 streams with any host except godaddy, where it takes 10-25 tries to login and then just 1 stream. Same experience with RW or any of several FTP clients I use.

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I hope everyone realizes that the FTP protocol is very insecure and really should not be used. Your login information includin the gpassword is transmitted in the clear without any encryption.
FTP dates back to 1971, long before there was an internet, and was intended for private networks. It’s fast and reliable, so it’s survived, but it’s easy pickings for any hackers running sniffers between the two endpoints.
SFTP establishes a secure shell (SSH) and then tunnels the FTP protocol through. In addition to providing security, also reduces the amount of TCP handshaking.
You probably don’t have many if any choices for your ISP, but you do have lots of options for hosting company. If go daddy or any host can’t help you set up a secure connection, it’s time to shop for a new host company.

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Thanks @teefers

I appreciate the points you make here and am committed to working with GoDaddy to get SFTP working reliably with RW on their cPanel servers. In the meantime by using my VPN I can get the full 6 stream capability with FTP that keeps upload times reasonable and keeps me able to publish

Given that there are a number of parts linked together, those being RW FTP client, Spectrum, and the Hosting Service (GoDaddy) its important for me to understand where the weak links are so they can be worked on. Its pretty clear to me that RW and GoDaddy work with regular FTP whenever Spectrum is NOT in the equation. Unfortunately I am limited to ISP choice by my location unless I am prepared for substantial cost increase.

Its useful to be able to share experiences here and avoid some of the pitfalls that others have experienced.

Thanks for your comments again.

John A

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