windows 2003 FTP server in passive mode wont list content of a folder.

Hi,

I am having a real issue with windows FTP server. We have it running in passive mode due to the firewall restrictions. Most of it works fine. People can connect, get and put files and list directories, but filezilla keeps failing to list one directory. I get the following:

Command:    LIST
Response:   125 Data connection already open; Transfer starting.
Response:   226 Transfer complete.
Error:  Connection timed out
Error:  Failed to retrieve directory listing

The folder only has 59 files which is a total of 2.52MB all of XLS type.

I am completely at a lost as to why this is happening. If I delete half of the files it works again. Doing an experiment 49 files would work but 50 files won't. There are other folders with 300+ images which are full of jpg files of a larger size.

Is this a known Windows FTP server issue?

Thanks

From serverfault Jon

• Seen something similar a while back. Check to see if any of the filenames would be invalid under *nix. Some FTP clients act strangely in such cases.

  Jon : They all seem good. "Send_only_catalogue_20100717.XLS" is an example they only part that changes is the date at the end of the file name. It also doesn't matter which files I delete, as long as there are 49 or less files it will display, more and it wont.

  John Gardeniers : Another perfectly good theory down the drain.

  Jon : thanks all the same, I have zipped all the files for the time being as it is stopping production work for the users.
  From John Gardeniers