This is a two fold lesson for the newbies out there.

Yesterday we were working with a client who was trying to edit some videos on his server. He could not figure out why he could not see them in his FTP clients, but he could see them in his SSH access. What he was trying to do initially was simply change the permissions on the clips, as required by the script, to chmod 777 so he could encode them.

He submitted trouble ticket after trouble ticket asking us to change this and that on permissions, usernames, among other things for an hour. At first he could see them and not edit them, and then next time after some permission change he could no longer see them in FTP. It should have been a very simple persmissions issue, IF that would have been the case.

After an hour of him bombarding us with trouble tickets, him, support, myself all logged into his server to see what was going on and if it was a server issue, or a user issue. After all, we could see all the videos in SSH. Meaning they were there. We all could also log in just fine. However, we were able to duplicate his issue. In about 2 minutes I figured out what his issue was. He was not using SFTP.

He had a home version of his FTP client programs, and that was his issue. He did not have SFTP, nor could select it.

Home versions typically do not support SFTP. Which is something that most, not all,  web hosts use. He, and you, should have as a business owner, and webmaster. SFTP is a more secure way to access your server. It is preferred for that reason over a typical FTP connection. With some web hosts, you will not be able to access their server without it.

It cracked me up. Between the client submitting the different changes, and the tech guys going nuts figuring it must be some bigger issue as the tech guys typically do, in the end it was something so simple as a USER issue and confguration problem. He upgraded his CuteFTP Home t o CuteFTP PRO which is a better program and also allows faster file transfer, and he was happy as a clam.