In recent times, the Poorhouse has experienced trouble with FTP transfers that appear to freeze, not even letting you see what is on the remote server. In its usual graceful form, slightly old versions of Windows we had the pleasure of using just froze when trying to use Internet Explorer or the command line "ftp" to access a certain ftp site for a swift transfer. Of course, not a useful error message in sight. The problem wasn't even solved by using a proper FTP program per se goddamnit.

This was because the server required the use of passive FTP, whereas the software defaulted to active FTP. The difference is outlined in a Slacksite.com article but as far as the real world is concerned, fix it by making your FTP program work in passive mode (the manual command for this is PASV but most people will never need to see that in this age of GUI extravaganzas).

For people using Internet Explorer for FTP, this is the process as told by Microsoft

1. Start Internet Explorer.
2. On the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
3. Click the Advanced tab.
4. Under Browsing, click to clear the Enable folder view for FTP sites check box.
5. Click to select the Use Passive FTP (for firewall and DSL modem compatibility) check box.

Any more dedicated FTP software (fairly essential for more dedicated FTP users) will almost certainly have an obvious option for it somewhere.