Tomato firmware advice needed

[absinthe]

I'm using a Buffalo router with tomato firmware. I want to transfer large files to my dad in another town. I've got FileZilla Server running on my machine (WinXP), and he has FileZilla Client running on his (Vista) computer.

Everything works just dandy, except that transfers won't complete. They get disconnected. A 700 MB file, say, will only get to about 100-150 MB before disconnecting.

I've been advised to set up my router not to drop idle connections. So, under the "advanced" section of the tomato firmware administration page, I find the following under "TCP timeout":

None
Established
SYN Sent
SYN Received
FIN Wait
Time Wait
Close
Close Wait
Last ACK
Listen

All the values are expressed in seconds. I was advised in a FileZilla forum to try changing the "Established" value, which is currently 14400. But that's 4 hours, and I know transfers are getting disconnected sooner than that. Also, none of these values will let me change them to "0" (which I would take to mean no timeout at all).

And I've completely disabled my firewall, BTW, so I know that's not the prob.

Can anyone advise me if there are settings in either FileZilla Server or in tomato firmware that I should look at?

Also, could the problem be on the other end? In other words, could Vista be breaking the connection? If that's even a possibility, I feel like just giving up now . My dad and I had a terrible time getting VNC to work on Vista (in fact, we never did). He's not very computer-literate, and ... well, you know what it's like trying to talk somebody through something on the phone, especially when you can't see their screen.

Also, is there a better way to transfer large files? Seems like years ago I used to use instant messanger software to do that (as a 'for instance').

thx,

-abs

 

[QueBert]

dropped connections can be tricky, were you ever having problems wit your connection prior to this? Did you use the router before you flashed the firmware? If you think it's possibly on the other end you could try downloading a large files from another ftp, or web site. Off hand I know te Company Of Hero's patch is 2 gigs, even if you don't have the game it's a good big file to use to test. You could also try another ftp server, don't know about FileZilla, but it's possible that program is acting up. Or as you said it's possible the problem is on the other end, here's what I'd do

open a CMD box, type this "ping google.com -t" and let it run for awhile, I'd say at least however long it usually goes before it drops the FTP connection + about 5 minutes, then hit ctrl-c to stop it and see how many dropped packets you have, a dropped packet wouldn't cause an FTP connection to die (not in a normal case) but looking for dropped packets and "unable to find host" or some sort of errors will tell you a lot. Sorry I don't have any more advice, but I'm sure one of the network wizards here will know more.

As for a better way, I personally love FTP's for large/many transfers. Nothing's easier and XP even has a built in client when you can use in a pinch.

 

[SinxarKnights]

I have issues with FileZilla also. I just went into the options and make it use the session keep alive or whatever its called. BTW Im using Tomato 1.15

 

[absinthe]

Thanks, guys. Hey, I found the "FTP keep alive" in the settings of FZ Client. I think I'll have my dad turn that on and see how it goes from there . . .

 

[absinthe]

Okay, the "FTP keep-alive" method didn't work (though it did seem to work better). At this point, is there a better FTP software or file transfer method that someone could recommend as more reliable?