Connect to ftp server

[GraemeC]

For a long time, I've used the "Connect to ftp server" function to upload files to my website. Today it's erroring out with "530 Login authentication failed".

Nothing has been changed since the last time it worked, a week or so ago. The account is still active, as I'm able to log into it from a browser. I've tried with Passive Mode checked and unchecked. It says "You are user number 15 of 200 allowed", so they're not overloaded. What else might have changed?

[Dalai]

Did you reenter the username and password? Have you verified the credential's correctness? Does your browser connect via FTPS instead of the unencrypted FTP?

Regards
Dalai

[GraemeC]

I did re-enter the password, and verified that it was correct by logging in via browser. The host website is https, but I think it has been for a long time. Haven't tried FTP or FTPS, I usually do all my uploading and downloading through Total Commander.

[Dalai]

The host website is https, but I think it has been for a long time. Haven't tried FTP or FTPS, I usually do all my uploading and downloading through Total Commander.

So you actually didn't verify that the FTP account is still valid. Connect to the same FTP address with your browser and try to login with the same credentials as in TC. I bet you'll get the same error as in TC - if you can connect at all since all major browsers either disabled FTP or removed FTP support or will do so in the near future.

In any case, check your hosting service's site how the connection is supposed to be made - I doubt that it still works via unencrypted FTP but rather either FTPS (secure FTP) or SFTP (FTP via SSH) or perhaps even WebDAV.

Regards
Dalai

[GraemeC]

Well, that's what it was, but I don't know why. I logged in to the Web Interface, went to the FTP section, and changed the password to (what it always was, and had always worked). It worked normally after that.

But I don't know why the problem happened at all. The account has been around for years, and the password had never been changed, and had never expired before.