A further update to this, I am unable to get WinSCP to use Binary transfer mode regardless of settings.

I have transfer settings set with Binary highest in the list, and the "Default" entry set as Binary too, but in the logs, the connection still uses ASCII.

Also, I have tried using a script file with the lines below:

-----
option transfer binary
open ftpes://...... etc.
-----

But again the logs show type selected is ASCII.

Hello,
We are trying to connect to an FTP server using explicit encryption, using WinSCP 6.5.6.

It seems the connection is succeeding, but hangs at "retrieving directory listing" and then times out.
We increased the timeout to 5 minutes but still see the same behaviour.

For the same server and client, we installed FileZilla to test a different FTP client, and this connects immediately with default settings.

Looking at the detailed WinSCP log, the connection succeeds and files are listed, but after listing the files we see the timeout:


. 2026-06-11 12:11:04.977 Timeout detected. (data connection)
. 2026-06-11 12:11:04.977 Could not retrieve directory listing.
* 2026-06-11 12:11:05.013 (EFatal) **Lost connection.**
* 2026-06-11 12:11:05.013 Timeout detected. (data connection)
* 2026-06-11 12:11:05.013 Could not retrieve directory listing.
* 2026-06-11 12:11:05.013 Error listing directory '/'.



The only other difference I can see between FileZilla and WinSCP is that earlier in the logs, FileZilla selects to use Binary, where WinSCP chooses ASCII.

I have tried changing the default transfer type in WinSCP to Binary, but the logs show my connection still using ASCII with that set - maybe I didn't set this the right way?

Thanks