Post a reply

Before posting, please read how to report bug or request support effectively.

Bug reports without an attached log file are usually useless.

Options
Add an Attachment

If you do not want to add an Attachment to your Post, please leave the Fields blank.

(maximum 10 MB; please compress large files; only common media, archive, text and programming file formats are allowed)

Options

Topic review

martin

Re: Need to connect FTP but get "Cannot initialize SFTP protocol

You need to specify FTP protocol like:
open ftp://username:password@ftp.servername.com:21
Phoenix5ire

Need to connect FTP but get "Cannot initialize SFTP protocol

I'm using WinSCP v4.0.4 (b346), automating a script download to a non-secure (port 21) FTP connection and this is what I'm getting, any help is greatly appreciated. I'm running this on Windows 2000. My script is as below:
=========================================================================
option confirm off
option transfer binary
open username:password@ftp.servername.com:21

# Get files
get *.* "c:\directory\foldername\"
rm *.*

#Disconnect
close

exit
=========================================================================
=========================================================================


This is the error I get:

C:\Program Files\WinSCP>WINSCP.COM /script=test.TXT
confirm off
transfer binary
Searching for host...
Connecting to host...
Host has not answered for more than 15 seconds. Still waiting...
Warning: Aborting this operation will close connection!
(A)bort:
=========================================================================

Now, if I Abort and it takes me thru the manual login input, here what I get:
.....
C:\Program Files\WinSCP>WINSCP.COM /script=test.TXT
confirm off
transfer binary
Searching for host...
Connecting to host...
Host has not answered for more than 15 seconds. Still waiting...
Warning: Aborting this operation will close connection!
(A)bort: Abort
Terminated by user.
winscp> open
Host: ftp.servername.com
Searching for host...
Connecting to host...
Authenticating...
'ftp.servername.com' session username: username
Using keyboard-interactive authentication.
Password:
Authenticated.
Starting the session...
Connection has been unexpectedly closed. Server sent command exit status 1.
Cannot initialize SFTP protocol. Is the host running a SFTP server?
winscp>
=========================================================================

As stated above, the host is not running an SFTP server. This is just a regular FTP connection. Now, if I use the WinSCP interface to connect, I have no problems it connects just fine and I can see everything. But I need to automate this download with a script, is there a setting in the script that I need to turn off SFTP protocol? What am I doing wrong?

Thank you in advance!

Phoenix~