TC and VPN

[gwisch]

Dear Herr Ghisler,
first of all thanks very much for porting TC to Android. I have been trying file managers on my cellphone (SGSII) like mad till I found the beta and now know that not too far from now my most favorite file manager will also work on my phone.
I especially like that TC does not seem to have a problem with shares located on with Win7 computers in my LAN - something where ES File Explorer crapped itself on a regular basis.
However, it seems that I can't access shared directories using TC over 3G using a VPN (ES FE has no problem there)? TC always wants to turn on the WiFi on the SGS.
Is it my fault or is this a bug or does VPN simply not work yet?

But, no matter what, thanks again for a great piece of software.

[ghisler(Author)]

No, it's not your fault, you need to allow access over 3G: Hold your finger on the LAN plugin on the home screen, then allow access over phone connections.

[gwisch]

Wow - works like a charm!

Thanks a lot!

Edit: Sorry, correction - when trying to copy files, the files transfer for about 50 kB and then a read error happens. Not suere where the problem lies, though.

[ghisler(Author)]

Hmm, no idea, the copying occurs within the JCIFS library.

[gwisch]

Were you able to verify this?
I was copying a directory of between 5 to 8 MB files (MP3s).

[ghisler(Author)]

Unfortunately not, sorry. There is no SMB server I could reach over 3G, only in our local area network (WLAN). I just downloaded a 84 MB ISO file and a few smaller PDF files ~500k, and all these files were downloaded completely without any problems.

[gwisch]

Ok, thanks, will see whether I can find out the reason.
On a related note: When I interrupt a transfer from a VPN server and then try to access the server again within the next seconds/minutes, I get an error message that the server cannot be reached (the VPN connection is still standing).
Since so far I haven't found a file manager on Android that has the same functional range, I can't test it with another one. Did you receive any other comments that point in the same direction?

[ghisler(Author)]

This can happen because servers only allow a limited number of connections per client. When you abort a transfer, the connection may hang, so a new one is needed.

[gwisch]

Ok, makes sense, thanks again.

[ZeusII]

been doing some testing and for me it's working fine, copied several MB's of images from the phone to the samba server through vpn and 3G without error.


maybe some retry function could be added as vpn connections are not reliable as a wifi connection.


could it be posible to add a speed counter?

[gwisch]

Yes, could not reproduce it either.
The problem with the hanging connection persists, though. Can only be solved by rebooting the client - might be an Android issue.

[gwisch]

Apologies for coming up with this again, but now I installed 2.3.4 final on my SGS2 and the problem persists - it does not seem to be a hanging connection; even hours after I interrupted the connection I can only get a new connection by rebooting the cellphone. If it was a hanging connection, shouldn't it have timed out by then?

[ghisler(Author)]

I found a bug in the used JCIFS library which caused the dreaded "broken pipe" error - maybe it's the same problem in your case too. I will put that in the next beta.

[gwisch]

Thanks, I'll wait for the fourth beta then.

[gwisch]

Perfect, RC1 solved the problem - thank you!
I can interrupt any transfer, cut the line, start from the beginning - no error messages anymore!