Celestial Software

1. US-English, no localization.

2. No. An old, decrepit computer running Windows 98 is all I have and have access to. If this old machine ever breaks down, I am out of luck. (Some of us are behind the technology curve and can't do anything about it. We're lucky to have anything at all.)

3. NetBSD 3.1_RC3, according to the login of the shell host. I don't know what kind of front end servers are involved.

4. 'sz --version' shows "sz (lrzsz) 0.12.20". It is whatever is supplied by my ISP. I never previously had a problem transferring files. I don't know what changed, as not long ago I was able to transfer even binary or large Ascii files with A.T. v3.85.

5. So far as I understand, I cannot give you temporary login without giving you total access to my account with my userid and login password, and that would violate my subscription agreement with my ISP, if I recall correctly. My ISP is a commercial enterprise in New York City, and they run a tight ship. Bend the rules and you're out on your ear.

A bit more. I can upload and download Ascii files in the 10's of KB size range with no trouble. But I am wondering if there is a filesize problem involved. I tried to upload a 379KB ZIPfile and ran into trouble. For a long time after the transfer started the dial-up networking icons in the system tray flashed on and off back and forth, but eventually the message box disappeared, and all I got was "square box" characters at the shell prompt, and it took 14000 ^C's to break things loose. An attempt to upload an 87KB ZIPfile also failed with the same problem.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Usually I use A.T. in SSH-2 mode for the security. However, not long ago I decided to try an experiment. Rather than login to my shell host with SSH-2, I tried straight TELNET. Now I got some different results.

I was able to download large files with Zmodem in both Ascii (almost 1M and binary (>700K modes correctly. One was a PDF (binary) and the other was a UUENCODE (Ascii) of that same file. Both were received on my Win98 machine correctly. The Ascii file UUDECODEd correctly, and both versions of the PDF were good. So there is a first impression that somehow SSH-2 as such may be involved.

There is still the erroneous message about the download directory being missing, even though it isn't. I have to go through the directory browse and select it, and even then the download process still squawks. I have to go through that a time or two and then Cancel, and the download starts. I don't know what is going on here.

HOWEVER, I cannot upload successfully in TELNET mode, either Ascii or binary. I start 'rz -a[b]' on the shell host. Then I get the usual browse box to select the file. I select the file, and the browse box pops up again. I select the file a second time, and then the upload supposedly starts. But within just a second or two the Zmodem progress window closes, some gibberish shows up on the shell host, and I have to ^C out to interrupt.

So at least there is something else involved. I can download in TELNET mode but not in SSH-2. I can upload small files in SSH-2 but cannot upload large files in SSH-2 or anything in TELNET. (I do want to be able to use SSH-2 for the security.)

Finally, as I have mentioned before, there seems to be a visual glitch in the Zmodem window. It appears that the "Packets Transmitted" label is truncated.

I'm not ignoring you, I'm just having trouble reproducing this bug in order to fix it.

Is there anything about your box that I should be aware of? Custom shells, desktop, program launchers, or task switchers?

Anything out of the ordinary?

I am not aware of anything out of the ordinary with the software. This is a very generic Windows 98 machine. I have all the critical updates installed that Microsoft made available up to the time that they dropped support for 98. You could say that it is plain vanilla. I can't think of anything that has changed since I was able to transfer large files with version 3.85.

I did drop back to 3.85, as it suits my needs as long as I can make the file transfers. Just to check I logged into a different shell host (I have a choice of five) from the one I usually use. There was no diference in the results.

It seems to be a file size issue with 3.85. I was able to succesfully download both Ascii and binary files in the 115 - 200 KB range with no problems. Attempting to download a larger file failed. Uploading any file of much more than about 26 KB -- that is the largest file I tried -- in either Ascii or binary fails. The progress meter quickly -- very quickly -- shoots up to about about 115 KB (and I don't see how that much data could possibly be transferred that quickly over a slow dialup link) and then hangs. Eventually the transfer message box disappears and it takes many, many, many ^C to the shell host to regain control.

Now that I think of it, one thing has changed, although I don't know whether that was in relation to the inability to transfer large files, as usually I am only transferring small to medium files.

I have only a dialup connection with a modem. Some time back I had a major hardware problem and now have a different motherboard in the machine. I also had to install a different modem with a different driver. My usual connect speed used to be 26400. About the same time as I made the hardware change one day I noticed a telephone repairman diddling around the apartment building. Since that time, my usual connect speed has dropped to 24000. I know the machine and modem are capable of more, because when someone else (I am not a hardware type) installed the modem and driver in another location we got a connect speed of 31600. So there does seem to be a hardware limitation on connect speed in my particular location. Whether any of this coincided with the inability to transfer large files with 3.85 I can't say, as I do not recall when I had last tried to transfer a large file until I started this thread.

But I am definitely suspicious about how the progress meter shoots up in just a few seconds to 115 - 120 KB when trying to upload a large file.

Would some sort of debugging data help? I have DebugView installed on this machine. It has been quite a while since I used it, but I am sure I could fire it up again for a version of A.T. that has debugging points.