FtpWebRequest Download File

Question

The following code is intended to retrieve a file via FTP. However, I'm getting an error with it.

serverPath = "ftp://x.x.x.x/tmp/myfile.txt";

FtpWebRequest request = (FtpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(serverPath);

request.KeepAlive = true;
request.UsePassive = true;
request.UseBinary = true;

request.Method = WebRequestMethods.Ftp.DownloadFile;                
request.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(username, password);

// Read the file from the server & write to destination                
using (FtpWebResponse response = (FtpWebResponse)request.GetResponse()) // Error here
using (Stream responseStream = response.GetResponseStream())
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(responseStream))            
using (StreamWriter destination = new StreamWriter(destinationFile))
{
    destination.Write(reader.ReadToEnd());
    destination.Flush();
}

The error is:

The remote server returned an error: (550) File unavailable (e.g., file not found, no access)

The file definately does exist on the remote machine and I am able to perform this ftp manually (i.e. I have permissions). Can anyone tell me why I might be getting this error?

Answer 1

not sure if it fixes your error, but shouldn't all of your using statements have brackets so the object is not disposed of before you try to access it in your next using statment?

using (FtpWebResponse response = (FtpWebResponse)request.GetResponse()) // Error here
{
using (Stream responseStream = response.GetResponseStream())
{
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(responseStream))  
{          
using (StreamWriter destination = new StreamWriter(destinationFile))
{
    destination.Write(reader.ReadToEnd());
    destination.Flush();
}
}
}
}

Answer 2

This paragraph from the FptWebRequest class reference might be of interest to you:

The URI may be relative or absolute. If the URI is of the form "ftp://contoso.com/%2fpath" (%2f is an escaped '/'), then the URI is absolute, and the current directory is /path. If, however, the URI is of the form "ftp://contoso.com/path", first the .NET Framework logs into the FTP server (using the user name and password set by the Credentials property), then the current directory is set to /path.

Answer 3

What happens if you set UsePassive to false? I never got any server working using passive mode..