Session looks like it starts, but then it closes?

Hi,

I've got a really annoying issue, and I don't know what to do about it. When I start the session, it loads as the below image - but then closes!



It used to work fine, so I'm not sure what has changed. I recorded the screen and then freeze-framed it to find what the message was (as it closes too quickly, that you can't read it)

Any ideas as to what could be causing it? I've had this a couple of times before, but I then moved host and haven't had a problem since. However, its arisen its head again :(

Cheers

Andy

Please attach a full session log file showing the problem (using the latest version of WinSCP).

Hi,

No worries. Please find it attached.

Cheers

Andy

Thanks for your report.
I have sent you an email with a debug version of WinSCP to the address you have used to register on this forum.

Though note that it's clearly server-side problem. I just want to find out, why WinSCP does not report any meaningful error message.

Thanks. That got me on to the right track :)

Thanks. For some reason I get a different error message in that version.

Server sent command exit status 127
Cannot initialize SFTP protocol. Is the host running an SFTP server?

Doing a google, I came across:

https://serverfault.com/questions/770541/can-connect-via-ssh-but-not-via-sftp-exit-status-127

In particular:

For me it was client configuration fault. 127 code means that command wasnt found. I changed WinSCP config to use "/bin/sftp-server" instead of "default" by mistake. Check your client config.

Sure enough, if I change the setting in Advanced > SFTP > SFT Server to /bin/sftp-server , then it works! Not ideal, but at least I have a work-around.

Looking at the versions, I have 5.9.5

Hopefully this will help someone else in the future :)

Cheers

Andy

I wrote this via email already, just for the others:

Sure enough, if I change the setting in Advanced > SFTP > SFT Server to /bin/sftp-server , then it works! Not ideal, but at least I have a work-around.

That indicates that the SSH server is misconfigured. When asked to run "sftp" server it fails (probably because its mapping for "sftp" subsystem points to an invalid path). You have worked around the misconfiugration. You should get the server fixed instead.

Yeah, I'm still trying to work out why the server is being weird :( As I mentioned earlier, it DID used to work fine - but after about a week, it started with this issue. So I'm not sure if it's something that I've installed that has messed it up, or something else.