Apache Commons FTPClient fails to retrieve some files

Question

I'm using Apache Commons FTPClient to fetch files from FTP server. This is the setup:

 ftpClient.setDefaultPort(port);
            ftpClient.connect(server);
            ftpClient.login(user, password);
            ftpClient.enterLocalPassiveMode();
            ftpClient.setFileType(FTPClient.BINARY_FILE_TYPE);
            ftpClient.changeWorkingDirectory(path);

This is the transfer code:

final FileOutputStream fileOutputStream = new FileOutputStream(tempFile);
                    final boolean result = ftpClient.retrieveFile(dirToList + aFile.getName(), fileOutputStream);
                    Log.i(TAG, "[" + (result ? "+" : "-") + "]");

And what I see in the logs:

I/SyncService( 4412): /Users/user1/Downloads/FtpSync/.idea/copyrightprofiles_settings.xml
I/SyncService( 4412): [-]
<...>
I/SyncService( 4412): /Users/user1/Downloads/FtpSync/footer.php
I/SyncService( 4412): [+]

All php files are synced, and all xml files are failed to sync. The FTP server is on my local notebook (Mac OS X default ftp server, tnftpd 20100324+GSSAPI)

Why it does not work?

Answer 1

For first, you should always close the output stream after the retrieveFile method. Have you tried to change the FTP.{filetype} when downloading XML files (although this shouldnt be the case)?

Answer 2

I have had trouble downloading some large files with the retrieveFile method, where it would crash without throwing an exception. In the end I used the retrieveFileStream method, which solved it for me.

Replace

status = mFTPClient.retrieveFile(srcFilePath, desFileStream);

With

// import org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils;

InputStream inputStream = mFTPClient.retrieveFileStream(srcFilePath);
IOUtils.copy(inputStream, desFileStream);
outputStream.flush();
IOUtils.closeQuietly(desFileStream);
IOUtils.closeQuietly(inputStream);

//status = mFTPClient.completePendingCommand();
status = true;

completePendingCommand crashed without throwing an exception for me, hence why it is commented out, but I think it is supposed to be called after completing a command.

Answer 3

use this code to download files.

public boolean ftpDownload(String srcFilePath, String desFilePath)
    {
        boolean status = false;
        try {
            FileOutputStream desFileStream = new FileOutputStream(desFilePath);; //desfilepath where the file is to be stored
            status = mFTPClient.retrieveFile(srcFilePath, desFileStream);

            desFileStream.close();

            return status;
        } catch (Exception e) {
            Log.d(TAG, "download failed");
        }

        return status;
    }