Two problems, FTP not working at a site and Error 50:
 

HELP
On three machines, Win98SE, WinXP desktop and WinXP laptop, I am able to download ZIP files from most sites but neither IE6 nor Firefox is able to connect with the server on an important US fcc.gov site when using my DSL ISP. There is "Connecting to ftp.fcc.gov" and then "Done", but no transfer has been attempted.

I am able to do downloads from this site using a dialup account on a different ISP. I blame the V***z*n ISP.

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I admit another defeat. I hadn't used dialup for a number of months and now get

"All devices connected
Error 50: The request is not supported."

This is on my Win98SE and WinXP desktop machines. I do not have this dialup problem on my WinXP laptop.

I have tried turning off the XP Firewall to no avail. I have not tried reseting TCP/IP.

All three machines use AVG Free 7.5 antivirus.

HELP!!

seacue

There is an add on for firefox for connecting to ftp sites called "FireFTP", might be worth a try (I've not used it myself)

I forgot to mention that downloading from ftp.fcc.gov worked fine up to last week.

Could they have blocked your ISP due to problems?

I find that I can download from other xxx.fcc.gov sites. It certainly looks as though ftp.fcc.gov or V***z*n have locked out the transfer I want. The main download from the ftp.fcc.gov is almost 70 megabytes. But I can't even download 140 kilobyte zip files from that site. I'll have to try from other users of V***z*n DSL.

Grrrr!

I did a System Restore to one week ago and that didn't help.


seacue

Without going in to too much detail... not all FTP servers behave in standard ways. There's a feature called "Passive Mode" that some support, some don't and some insist on, and that can play havoc with file transfers. It's probably their fault, not yours.

Have a look here for details on how to tweak IE to
use Passive mode or not: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323446 - see if that helps.

I tried downloading from ftp.fcc.gov from a different V***z*n DSL account served by a central office a dozen miles from "mine". The transfer failed in exactly the same way as from my own home account. This seems to indicate that ftp.fcc.gov and V***z*n DSL do not like each other.

seacue