February 5, 2006

Dreamweaver FTP Can't Connect

As I've mentioned before, Dreamweaver's FTP works fantastically well. No need to switch to another FTP program to FTP files that you're already looking at in DW's tree view.* Except that, in some circumstances, DW simply will not connect to the server, no matter that you've followed all the usual instructions.

Thanks to Craig Lido for pointing me to Macromedia's Dreamweaver TechNote:

Add a colon and the port number to the end of the FTP host name in the FTP Host text box. The FTP host name will appear similarly to the following examples:
-www.myhost.com:80
-123.456.789.012:80

Much appreciated.

Related posts:

  1. Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 … soon
  2. Dreamweaver vs. GoLive
  3. Dreamweaver 8 and MX 2004 Tips
  4. Changing Dreamweaver Default Extensions
  5. Dreamweaver – Flashing Divs

25 Comments to "Dreamweaver FTP Can't Connect"

  1. Becky Bohman says:
    Comment posted on 02/23/09 @ 2:10 pm

    I just switched hosting companies and am having difficulties connecting to the server through Dreamweaver. I have ALWAYS used Dreamweaver for coding, designing, uploading, etc. but for some reason with this new server, it absolutely will not accept my username and password. I've connected using FileZilla just fine using the same login info, but for some reason Dreamweaver is being stubborn. Any ideas please?

  2. Diane Vigil says:
    Comment posted on 02/23/09 @ 2:17 pm

    A few things to try:

    - make sure you're using the correct username and password
    - are you
    - try the tips in my article above
    - In Sites > Manage Sites > Edit > Remote Info, deselect "Use Secure FTP (SFTP)

    One of those ought to do it. Let me know what happens.

  3. moira says:
    Comment posted on 03/16/09 @ 10:05 pm

    I have been using an old version – Dreamweaver 2 – which has been great – and now I am having ftp problems. I have tried all of the above and I still get a message – host found connecting – and then – an ftp error occurred – connect make connection to host.
    I have rung mine host and want me to use their Zilla thing as well which I have to buy. Why would I when D/W has been perfect. Hope you can help.
    Cheers Moira

  4. Diane Vigil says:
    Comment posted on 03/17/09 @ 12:43 am

    A couple of questions: have you switched hosts recently? If not, have they changed something? Are you trying to upload via a secure connection (SFTP) that's being rejected?

    You can always try Filezilla, which is free. If nothing else, that may give you some clues.

    Thing is, I'm not sure whether FTP protocols may have changed. I used WS_FTP '95 for years before upgrading, and then using DW's internal FTP functions. So I'm not sure whether there may be something different with respect to FTP functions this much later on.

  5. Joshua Solomon says:
    Comment posted on 03/17/09 @ 6:54 pm

    I was having the same issue with Dreamweaver not connecting to my site via ftp while Filezilla was having no problems. Here's what I did:

    Go into: Manage Sites

    Select Your Site

    Click Edit

    Select the Advanced Tab

    Select Remote Info from the list on the left.

    Then in the ftp host enter:
    yourdomain.com:21
    or
    your Static IP address followed by :21
    ex. 192.168.0.1:21

    NOW HERE IS THE KEY!! Change the FTP Time Out setting

    Click the button that says "Firewall Settings"

    Find "FTP time out:"

    Replace the 2 Seconds with 10 Seconds.

    Then try it if it still doesn't work check the "Use passive FTP" check box and try again.

  6. Diane Vigil says:
    Comment posted on 03/17/09 @ 7:03 pm

    Port number 21? Interesting; mine's already set for port 21 in the firewall settings, but not in the host name.

    Thanks, Joshua.

  7. john says:
    Comment posted on 05/8/09 @ 3:08 pm

    i had the same prob. filezilla connects but not DW. i only changed my timeout, under "firewall settings" from 10 secs to 60 secs and that fixed it.

  8. Diane Vigil says:
    Comment posted on 05/12/09 @ 1:17 am

    Excellent. Great tip, John.

  9. Steve Douglas says:
    Comment posted on 05/29/09 @ 11:07 am

    Thank you thank you thank you! Adding the colon and the port made DW CS3 immediately connect! I'd been getting the dorky error dialogs for over an hour until I found this site and your suggestion.

    Thanks again!

  10. Janell says:
    Comment posted on 07/23/09 @ 8:56 am

    I've been using dreamweaver (MX2004) for over 2 years now with absolutely no problems connecting to the ftp. Within the last 3 days, it's gone to hell; and nothing will connect – I get the "failed to connect to server" or "server unavailable/not accepting new connections" and occasionally the "timed out" error. I'm curious if it's a server issue, as I've tried connecting from a different FTP program with no luck as well (although it still works occasionally more often than DW does); but according to my host, nothing of the sort is going on with them.

    I've tried all of the above tricks and gotten nowhere. Considering this is my business website, I'm more than a bit peeved. Any ideas?

  11. Diane Vigil says:
    Comment posted on 07/23/09 @ 2:48 pm

    That's odd, if another FTP program also can't connect to the server. I have occasionally had a problem uploading PDF files with DW (in which case I upload them with WS_FTP), but that's about it.

    What types of files are you trying to upload?

    Otherwise, if it's not something along these lines, I'd guess that it may be a server issue — but, in any case, it's hardly convenient not to be able to update your business website.

  12. Bob says:
    Comment posted on 08/25/09 @ 10:29 am

    Woohoo "Use passive ftp fixed an issue a customer of our ISP was having – TY

  13. Diane Vigil says:
    Comment posted on 08/25/09 @ 10:39 am

    Excellent! Glad it helped.

  14. Fred says:
    Comment posted on 10/6/09 @ 6:06 am

    I have tried all of your suggestions. Still no connection. Anything else I can try? Outside of re-installing.

  15. Diane Vigil says:
    Comment posted on 10/6/09 @ 6:14 am

    I'm not sure that reinstalling will help; if Dreamweaver is working otherwise but you can't FTP to the server, that's where the error lies.

    If you've tried all the other suggestions, one thing I'd suggest would be to contact your web host. For instance, it may be that your host has specified something else than :80:

    -www.myhost.com:80
    -123.456.789.012:80

    Something else I recently encountered: a new server was configured a little differently than "normal" and I, of course, was trying different methods of connecting via Dreamweaver (click, click, click in rapid succession) … so the server ended up blocking me! LOL. At any rate, the upline web host sorted it out and all is fine.

    Let me know how it goes.

  16. Fred says:
    Comment posted on 10/7/09 @ 5:36 am

    Hey Diane,

    Contacted my host. Tried the port. It didn't work.
    It's so frustrating. :(

    Thanks,

    Fred

  17. Diane Vigil says:
    Comment posted on 10/7/09 @ 5:40 am

    Okay. Let's start here: who is your web host?

  18. omar says:
    Comment posted on 11/4/09 @ 3:21 pm

    im having the same problem and im with godaddy

  19. Diane Vigil says:
    Comment posted on 11/4/09 @ 3:31 pm

    Okay. In Dreamweaver, in the Site definition (in the Advanced tab), the HTTP address should be something like this:

    http://yoursite.com/public_html/
    or http://yoursite.com/www/
    or http://yoursite.com/htdocs/

    Normally, you can find this info simply by FTPing in to your web hosting account.

    The thing with GoDaddy is finding your actual server path, which isn't obvious when you FTP in. Let's say your username is xyz444. Your server path for Dreamweaver might be:

    http://yoursite.com/home/content/x/y/z/html/
    -or-
    http://yoursite.com/home/content/x/y/z/maybesomenumbers/html/

    If you don't have this information, call GoDaddy. Ignore any advice they give you that the problem is your "web designer" or "Dreamweaver". If you get the right info, the above should work.

    Unfortunately, not all the GoDaddy tech support folks are aware of the above.

  20. Phil says:
    Comment posted on 11/18/09 @ 6:45 pm

    OMG I\'m so new at this. I was entering the site as ftp://mydomain.com
    I changed it to mydomain.com:21 and that fixed it. I figured I would put that out there in case someone else made that mistake.

  21. Adrian Guerra II says:
    Comment posted on 01/15/10 @ 9:39 am

    Copy the actual IP address with port number (ex. 192.22.33.01:21) fixed the problem for me. It seems as though Dreamweaver is not changing the domain name to the ip address after submitting for test.

  22. Chris says:
    Comment posted on 01/27/10 @ 8:59 am

    Ok for a few people out there I tried absolutely everything and the only thing that worked was to use the ip address instead of the ftp server name http://ftp.mysite.com for example.

    I am on Mac OSX 10.5 using Dreamweaver CS4. It seems to be a bug. I could connect to all my servers via my other ftp client and some servers using DWCS4 but not ones that all began with the same server name. Anything that was http://ftp.mysite.com for example would not connect.

    Like Adrian it appears the ftp address was not getting converted to an IP address.

  23. Chris says:
    Comment posted on 01/27/10 @ 9:01 am

    Note to moderator please remove above urls in my post as one links to a real ftp area. My bad :/

  24. Diane Vigil says:
    Comment posted on 01/27/10 @ 12:54 pm

    I switched it to "mysite.com".

  25. enolam says:
    Comment posted on 01/27/10 @ 2:55 pm

    thank you all / close to pulling my hair out

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