Loosing Connection: (command in progress, IP Address not found and more)

[netchain]

First, I love TotalCmd and I've been using it since 90's when it was a 16 bit version and called Windows Commander. Prior that I was using Norton Commander since 80's (not to mention Midnight Commander under Linux).

I have a problem that I had in the past 5-10 years, maybe longer.

When I leave it connected to FTP server and when the connection times out, the commander is not "easily" reconnects. Sometimes it does it right away, but usually when I press Ctrl+R to refresh the connection - nothing happens, as the process is in progress in background, but no visible change appear. When I press Refresh again I get "Command in progress!" message as probably I should, but it takes too long: 5-10 seconds. If I press OK in the message box and Ctrl+R again, I would get the same message a couple of more times.

Image: https://flepy.com/tmp1.jpg

Then I reach a second "timing" period, when I get another message "IP Address not found!". I know the server is running and my network is OK, and DNS servers are function and all that - this message is misleading. I understand that either Total Commander or part of my Windows truly can't find IP address, but it's not because of the misconfiguration of either FTP connection or my FTP Server, however it is possible that my FTP server does something "funky". I am using very old Serv-U FTP Server version 5.0

Image: https://flepy.com/tmp2.jpg

So, after refreshing and then closing "IP Address not found!" message box and refreshing again and so on, for about 5-8 times I finally get to the last stage, with the message box "Connection lost, reconnect", at which point I would answer Yes and everything would start working.

Image: https://flepy.com/tmp3.jpg

I've made peace with that and been dealing with it don't even remember for how long, probably since switching from Windows 2003 Server to Windows 8. Again, it is possible that my Serv-U FTP server hides its existence temporarily when it is falsely thinks

[ghisler(Author)]

This happens when the connection is still there (no shutdown packet received), so TC sends the new command but doesn't get any reply. Maybe there is a proxy/firewall in between to which the connection still stands, but the connection between the proxy and the server was lost. Unfortunately there is no easy way to detect this, because some servers can be REALLY slow to respond (several seconds).

[netchain]

Thank you, Christian.

A feature request (maybe related): Because of this problem almost all the time, if I need to comeback to the existing FTP connection, then instead of Refreshing I usually establish the new connection/session, because I know, if I press Refresh, then it would hang for about 10 seconds, but opening a new connection happens in less than a second. I can't wait 10 seconds. While I'm continuously working with FTP - I reuse the existing connection, but if I haven't used FTP for more than 15-20 minutes, then I just open the new one. So, by the end of a full working day, sometimes I have 7-8 or even more open sessions with the same FTP (which I don't use to save my time). Now when I push Disconnect button - it goes through the same 10-seconds delay process, because (I know) the connection with the current session has been lost long time ago, but Total Commander doesn't know that, so it tries to disconnect "graciously", patiently waiting for a reply from connection which no longer exist. If I try to cancel and reconnect again, then I get that "Command in progress" message again, blocking my work with Total Commander. That consumes a lot of my time.

Here's the feature request: is it possible to just drop/abandon the connection, if the user clicked the SECOND time on the disconnect button?

These days everyone has fast internet, so if the user clicked second time - most likely that's because the user lost the patience of waiting to get disconnected after the first click. That assumption should be enough to make a decision that the connection has probably been lost, so there's no reason for waiting a response from the server and it's safe to just drop the session for faster response.

...Maybe there is a proxy/firewall in between...

No, there isn't any firewall nor proxy and I have had the same problem for a very long time under different computers, since Windows 8 (don't remember the problem on Windows XP or Windows 2003 Server or before) and different networks, different locations, routers, internet providers, etc. and different versions of Total Commander. The only common element is the same very old version of Serv-U FTP Server v.5 on different networks and different computers as well, so that's why I thought that most likely the server has problem, but something triggered the problem about 10 years ago, that's why I wonder what.

[ghisler(Author)]

You can try a smaller value by setting
DataConnectTimeout=5
or so in wcx_ftp.ini, section [General], but it may not help in your specific situation.