Troubleshooting Remote Server Mount

There are several issues that can cause remote server mount failures such as authentication issues, firewall issues on the remote server, general remote server issues, invalid file or folder names, invalid file sizes, slow transfer times.

When these issues occur, you may see effects such as some files successfully being transferred while others fail. We provide detailed error messages that should allow you to determine the cause of the failure.

Authentication issues can usually be resolved by correcting any relevant credentials when setting up the Remote Server. However, sometimes authentication issues can occur because of IP address requirements.

Be aware of the following if the remote server enforces an IP address whitelist.

If your site uses a custom domain, you have two dedicated IPs that may be used for outbound connections. To find your dedicated IPs, type "Firewall" in the search box at the top of every page, and then click on the matching result. Scroll to the bottom of that page to find your dedicated IP addresses. You can disable the use of your dedicated IP for specific remote server mounts. You might do that if your counterparty has already whitelisted the main Files.com IP range, for example.

If you do not have a custom domain, ensure that our main IPs on this list are whitelisted, not just some of them. There are quite a lot of IPs on that list (over 80 at last count) and you need to whitelist all IPs or else you will experience failures. If whitelisting that many IP addresses is a problem for you, the solution is to move to a custom domain. This will get you a pair of IP addresses you can whitelist.

Remote servers will likely prohibit certain characters from being used in file and folder names. If you see issues with invalid file or folder names, we recommend you modify those names to remove the restricted characters.

Remote servers may also restrict the length of the file or folder name. Common length limits include 160 and 255 characters.

Bear in mind that some remote servers calculate the total length as being either just the file or folder name, including any extension or the sum of the whole folder path + file name + extension + temporary suffix.

To resolve this issue, shorten the name of files and folders so that they are below the length limits of the remote server.

On the Files.com side, the path limit is 550 characters for the sum of the full path, including folder names.

Remote servers may have maximum size limits for files. Please check the documentation of the remote server for details on any file size limits or restrictions.

Remote servers that use APIs or HTTP based connections may also not support zero byte file sizes.

Slow transfers and long transfer durations can be caused by low network bandwidth, high network latency, large quantity of files being transferred, huge file sizes, network throttling, remote system performance, local system performance, encryption methods, and session time limits.

The physical limitations of a network or system cannot be circumvented. For example, if sending a 10GB file across the internet to the remote server takes you 2 hours then sending the same 10GB file across the internet to the remote server will take us 2 hours also, assuming we both have identical network connectivity with the remote server.

If the remote server has a temporary issue, such as being temporarily offline or unavailable, then accessing the remote mount will fail but subsequent access attempts may succeed once the remote service is accessible again.

If the remote server has a permanent issue or limitation, such as not accepting file sizes greater than 2GB or having the incorrect access permissions set, then affected files will never be successfully uploaded or download.

To resolve these issues, make sure that the correct access permissions have been set on the remote server and that any known limitations are communicated to your users. For example, if the remote server cannot accept file sizes greater than 2GB then communicate to your users that file sizes should be kept below the 2GB limit.

To troubleshoot access permission issues, configure a connection to the remote server using credentials with full (read, write, update, delete, list, etc.) access permissions and see if the issue persists. If not, then an access permission is causing the issue. Reconfigure the access permissions one at a time and re-test the remote mount to determine exactly which access permission is causing the issue.

If the connection to the remote mount times out then the remote server is most likely unreachable, offline, incorrectly configured, or blocked by a firewall.