commons-net ftp is uploading corrupted files

Question

Hi all,

I'm trying to use apache commons-net for ftp file transfers.

Problem is files are intermittently arriving at the server corrupt. by 'corrupt' i mean that winrar tells me a zip file has an 'Unexpected end of archive'. sometimes the files are completely empty. I have noticed that this happens more for larger files (100kb+), however does happen for small files too (20kb).

I know for a fact that the source zip file being uploaded is valid, and is only 243kb.

I do not get any errors/exceptions from the code.

Here's the code being executed:

    try
    {
        int CON_TIMEOUT = (int) TimeUnit.SECONDS.toMillis(20); // fail if can't connect within 20 seconds
        int LIVE_TIMEOUT = (int) TimeUnit.MINUTES.toMillis(5); // allow up to 5 minutes for data transfers

        FTPClient client = new FTPClient();
        client.setConnectTimeout(CON_TIMEOUT);
        client.setDataTimeout(LIVE_TIMEOUT);
        client.connect(host);
        client.setSoTimeout(LIVE_TIMEOUT);
        client.login(user, pass);
        client.changeWorkingDirectory(dir);
        log("client ready");

        File file = new File(filePath);
        String name = new Date().getTime() + "-" + file.getName();

        InputStream fis = null;
        try
        {
            fis = new FileInputStream(file);
            if (!client.storeFile(name, fis))
                throw new RuntimeException("store failed");
            log("store " + name + " complete");
        }
        finally
        {
            IOUtils.closeQuietly(fis);
            try
            {
                client.logout();
                log("logout");
            }
            catch (Throwable e)
            {
                log("logout failed", e);
            }
            try
            {
                client.disconnect();
                log("disconnect");
            }
            catch (Throwable e)
            {
                log("disconnect failed", e);
            }
        }
    }
    catch (Throwable e)
    {
        log("transfer failed", e);
    }

and some logs:

2010-08-10 21:32:38 client ready
2010-08-10 21:32:49 store 1281439958234-file.zip complete
2010-08-10 21:32:49 logout
2010-08-10 21:32:49 disconnect
2010-08-10 21:32:50 client ready
2010-08-10 21:33:00 store 1281439970968-file.zip complete
2010-08-10 21:33:00 logout
2010-08-10 21:33:00 disconnect
2010-08-10 21:33:02 client ready
2010-08-10 21:33:11 store 1281439982234-file.zip complete
2010-08-10 21:33:11 logout
2010-08-10 21:33:11 disconnect
2010-08-10 21:33:15 client ready
2010-08-10 21:33:25 store 1281439995890-file.zip complete
2010-08-10 21:33:26 logout
2010-08-10 21:33:26 disconnect
2010-08-10 21:33:27 client ready
2010-08-10 21:33:36 store 1281440007531-file.zip complete
2010-08-10 21:33:36 logout
2010-08-10 21:33:36 disconnect
2010-08-10 21:33:37 client ready
2010-08-10 21:33:48 store 1281440017843-file.zip complete
2010-08-10 21:33:48 logout
2010-08-10 21:33:48 disconnect
2010-08-10 21:33:49 client ready
2010-08-10 21:33:59 store 1281440029781-file.zip complete
2010-08-10 21:33:59 logout
2010-08-10 21:33:59 disconnect
2010-08-10 21:34:00 client ready
2010-08-10 21:34:09 store 1281440040812-file.zip complete
2010-08-10 21:34:09 logout
2010-08-10 21:34:09 disconnect
2010-08-10 21:34:10 client ready
2010-08-10 21:34:23 store 1281440050859-file.zip complete
2010-08-10 21:34:24 logout
2010-08-10 21:34:24 disconnect
2010-08-10 21:34:25 client ready
2010-08-10 21:34:35 store 1281440065421-file.zip complete
2010-08-10 21:34:35 logout
2010-08-10 21:34:35 disconnect

note that all of these were complete within 15 seconds, and all of the resulting files on the server are corrupt.

i have also tested without setting any timeouts and the problem still occurs.

Answer 1

Commons FTP defaults to ascii file types. You want to set it to Binary when dealing with binary data like a zip file.

From http://commons.apache.org/net/api/org/apache/commons/net/ftp/FTPClient.html

The default settings for FTPClient are for it to use FTP.ASCII_FILE_TYPE , FTP.NON_PRINT_TEXT_FORMAT , FTP.STREAM_TRANSFER_MODE , and FTP.FILE_STRUCTURE . The only file types directly supported are FTP.ASCII_FILE_TYPE and FTP.BINARY_FILE_TYPE .

you want to do setFileType(FTP.BINARY_FILE_TYPE) before you send the file.