Troubleshooting SFTP

SFTP connection issues are typically caused by firewalls or incorrect settings in SFTP software. The below steps will help you resolve these issues.

We are often met with resistance by customers who don't want to invest in troubleshooting their client or firewall because a given connection may have worked in the past.

In our experience, the change that caused the problem is usually on the customer side, and we'd really like you to go through and verify all of the following things before asking us for further help.

If we perform a Zoom call with you, these steps are what we will investigate together.

• Local network / firewall issues
• Connection settings in your SFTP app
• SFTP Configuration on Files.com that may be relevant
• Invalid authentication, username, or password
• Partially uploaded files

The Files.com platform performs some operations asynchronously and these operations will run in the background in parallel.

SFTP clients are unaware of asynchronous background operations.

For example, using the SFTP rename command to move a file from one Files.com storage region to another, or from one Remote Server Mount to another, will asynchronously create a background process to move the file. Control is immediately returned to the SFTP client even though the move is still occurring in the background.

If you are programmatically interacting with SFTP, such as from a script or iPaaS process, then the next commands will execute while the move operation is still in progress. If your script, or process, immediately tries to access the moved file then it will fail because the move operation hasn't completed yet.

Considerations for a reliable integration with Files.com should take into account the asynchronous background operations and should implement verification steps in scripts and processes to detect that a moved, renamed, or copied file is available at the destination prior to attempting any further actions on it.