Fetch Softworks

slow uploads using Fetch 5.1 S 10.4 (25 posts)

• Started 17 years ago by Mikeman
• Latest reply 17 years ago from Scott McGuire

• Mikeman Member

  We are seeing very slow uploads using Fetch 5.1 on Macs running OS 10.4. An upload starts at about 90kps...then gradually goes down to about 30kps (or worse). Windows machines do not see the slowdown (150kps on average). Surprisingly, the Fetch 3.03 client running in Classic does not see the slowdown (actually it works faster than the PCs (I see 200kps alot). I have tried half a dozen FTP clients and even using FTP via the Terminal. The slowdown is apparent in every instance. Does anyone know what OSX does differently from OS9 (Classic) in the way it uses FTP?

  Thanks

  Posted 17 years ago #

• Scott McGuire Administrator

  Hi,

  Could you upload the same file with Fetch 3.0.3 under Classic and Fetch 5.1 under Mac OS X 10.4, and post the transcripts from each upload?

  In both, choose "Fetch Transcript" from the Windows menu, copy the entire contents of the transcript window, and paste them here.

  Also, how are the Macs connected to the network? Are they connected directly, do they go through a router, or are you using Airport?

  Thanks,

  Scott McGuire
  Fetch Softworks

  Posted 17 years ago #

• Mikeman Member

  The Macs are on a Gigabit network (ethernet). No wireless is being used. It is a business network going through Enterasys switches and Cisco Routers. The FTP server was behind a Cisco Pix firewall. We tried moving it into our subnet in a DMZ but it didn't help the speed issue. It's really puzzeling why Fetch 5 in OS X is so slow yet Fetch 3.03 running in Classic on the same box is so much faster. Any help you can provide will be much appreciated. It's got us stumped. Here are the transcripts (sensitive info has been removed by request of the Network Admin)

  Fetch 3.03

  Connecting to ftp.namedeleted.com port 21 (8/14/06 10:46:00 AM)
  220---------- Welcome to Pure-FTPd [privsep] [TLS] ----------
  220-You are user number 3 of 50 allowed.
  220-Local time is now 10:46. Server port: 21.
  220-This is a private system - No anonymous login
  220-IPv6 connections are also welcome on this server.
  220 You will be disconnected after 15 minutes of inactivity.
  USER test
  331 User test OK. Password required
  PASS
  230-User test has group access to: ftpgroup
  230 OK. Current restricted directory is /
  SYST
  215 UNIX Type: L8
  PWD
  257 "/" is your current location
  PWD
  257 "/" is your current location
  PASV
  227 Entering Passive Mode (192,168,100,100,85,121)
  LIST
  150 Accepted data connection
  226-Options: -l
  drwxrwxrwx 9 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 11 16:48 SHARED
  226 14 matches total
  drwxr-xr-x 2 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 14 10:41 Testing
  drwxrwxrwx 54 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 9 16:56 adcom
  drwxrwxrwx 2 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 14 10:36 bluestreak
  drwxrwxrwx 3 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 14 06:27 dowjones
  drwxr-xr-x 2 0 0 4096 Jun 27 09:05 etc
  drwxr-xr-x 2 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 14 10:31 krtphotos
  drwxrwxrwx 5 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 10 11:29 ldap
  drwxrwxrwx 2 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 10 17:01 pages
  drwxr-xr-x 2 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 14 10:38 ads
  drwxr-xr-x 5 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Jun 19 17:17 news
  drwxrwxrwx 4 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Jun 29 18:44 photo
  drwxr-xr-x 2 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Jul 21 11:26 prucar
  drwxrwxrwx 19 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Jul 27 22:53 subs
  CWD Testing
  250 OK. Current directory is /Testing
  PWD
  257 "/Testing" is your current location
  PASV
  227 Entering Passive Mode (192,168,100,100,204,139)
  LIST
  150 Accepted data connection
  226-Options: -l
  226 0 matches total
  PASV
  227 Entering Passive Mode (192,168,100,100,53,21)
  STOR Mike Test3.pdf
  150 Accepted data connection
  Upload complete at 8/14/06 10:46:46 AM
  226-File successfully transferred
  226 38.534 seconds (measured here), 179.80 Kbytes per second

  Fetch 5.1

  Fetch 5.1 (5B286) PowerPC running on Mac OS X 10.4.7 (8J135) PowerPC English
  StuffIt Engine 0x820, StuffIt SDK Version 10.1.1b1
  Partial serial FETCH5F026-xxxx-xxxx x (removed for security)
  Connecting to ftp.namedeleted.com port 21 (OS X firewall is off) (8/14/06 10:47:26 AM)
  Connected to 192.168.100.100 port 21 (8/14/06 10:47:26 AM)
  220---------- Welcome to Pure-FTPd [privsep] [TLS] ----------
  220-You are user number 3 of 50 allowed.
  220-Local time is now 10:47. Server port: 21.
  220-This is a private system - No anonymous login
  220-IPv6 connections are also welcome on this server.
  220 You will be disconnected after 15 minutes of inactivity.
  USER test
  331 User test OK. Password required
  PASS
  230-User test has group access to: ftpgroup
  230 OK. Current restricted directory is /
  SYST
  215 UNIX Type: L8
  PWD
  257 "/" is your current location
  MACB ENABLE
  500 Unknown command
  PWD
  257 "/" is your current location
  TYPE A
  200 TYPE is now ASCII
  PASV
  227 Entering Passive Mode (192,168,100,100,148,41)
  LIST -al
  150 Accepted data connection
  drwxrwxrwx 16 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 14 10:38 .
  drwxrwxrwx 16 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 14 10:38 ..
  -rw------- 1 2001 ftpgroup 0 Jun 19 17:13 .ftpquota
  drwxrwxrwx 9 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 11 16:48 SHARED
  drwxr-xr-x 2 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 14 10:47 Testing
  drwxrwxrwx 54 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 9 16:56 adcom
  drwxrwxrwx 2 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 14 10:36 bluestreak
  drwxrwxrwx 3 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 14 06:27 dowjones
  drwxr-xr-x 2 0 0 4096 Jun 27 09:05 etc
  drwxr-xr-x 2 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 14 10:31 krtphotos
  drwxrwxrwx 5 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 10 11:29 ldap
  drwxrwxrwx 2 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 10 17:01 pages
  drwxr-xr-x 2 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 14 10:38 ads
  drwxr-xr-x 5 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Jun 19 17:17 news
  drwxrwxrwx 4 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Jun 29 18:44 photo
  drwxr-xr-x 2 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Jul 21 11:26 prucar
  drwxrwxrwx 19 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Jul 27 22:53 subs
  226-Options: -a -l
  226 17 matches total
  CWD Testing
  250 OK. Current directory is /Testing
  PWD
  257 "/Testing" is your current location
  PASV
  227 Entering Passive Mode (192,168,100,100,219,82)
  LIST -al
  150 Accepted data connection
  drwxr-xr-x 2 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 14 10:47 .
  drwxrwxrwx 16 2001 ftpgroup 4096 Aug 14 10:38 ..
  -rw-r--r-- 1 2001 ftpgroup 7094563 Aug 14 10:47 Mike Test3.pdf
  226-Options: -a -l
  226 3 matches total
  DELE Mike Test3.pdf
  250 Deleted Mike Test3.pdf
  TYPE I
  200 TYPE is now 8-bit binary
  PASV
  227 Entering Passive Mode (192,168,100,100,241,169)
  STOR Mike Test3.pdf
  150 Accepted data connection
  Update check skipped at 08/14/2006 10:49 AM (next check after 08/19/2006 08:38 PM)
  226-File successfully transferred
  226 136.371 seconds (measured here), 37.41 Kbytes per second
  Transfer of Mike Test3.pdf (5,223,672 bytes, 38,409 bytes/sec, 2:16 elapsed) completed at 8/14/06 10:49:59 AM

  Posted 17 years ago #

• Scott McGuire Administrator

  Hi Mike,

  To be honest, we're pretty puzzled as well - we can't think of a reason Classic would be faster than Mac OS X (and this is not what we normally see). According to the transcripts, there is no difference in how Fetch 5.1 and Fetch 3.0.3 are communicating with the server.

  Do you just see this behavior with this one server, or with any server you try to upload to? (If you want to test with a different server, you can upload to the incoming directory on ftp.fetchsoftworks.com - it's a dropbox, so you won't be able what goes in there after you upload, but you can test the speeds.)

  Have you tried using Apple's Broadband Tuner on the Mac to see if that makes a different with Mac OS X upload speeds? You can download it from http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/broadbandtuner10.html . (If that doesn't help, you can undo the changes the Broadband Tuner makes by running its installer again.)

  Let us know. Thanks,

  Scott McGuire
  Fetch Softworks

  Posted 17 years ago #

• Mikeman Member

  I tried the broadband Tuner. No help. We have an FTP server inside our subnet which is fast to upload to. I also put a Mac outside the Firewall and set it up for FTP. I could FTP to it a little faster (around 78kps) but still not nearly as fast as I can with Fetch 3.03 (I just got 273kps on it). If We knew what OS X does differently than OS 9, then maybe we could change the Firewall settings, but until then, we're just firing blind.

  Posted 17 years ago #

• Scott McGuire Administrator

  Hi Mike,

  Another thing you might want to look into is IPNetTuner, which you can get from http://www.sustworks.com - which lets you tweak more than the Broadband Tuner. But if it's a firewall issue, I don't know if that would help.

  Have you tried using SFTP instead of FTP, if the server supports (or can be set up to support) it? Sometimes problems that affect FTP do not affect SFTP.

  Scott McGuire
  Fetch Softworks

  Posted 17 years ago #

• Mikeman Member

  I tried the IPNetuner with no sucess. I tried SFTP and saw the same slowdown. HTTP uploads to this server are fast, downloads are fast. OS 9 is fast. FTP protocol is supposed to be the same regardless of OS. It's driving us nuts.

  Posted 17 years ago #

• Scott McGuire Administrator

  Hi Mike,

  I'm afraid we're pretty much out of ideas, sorry. We've tested Classic vs. OS X on a couple of setups and haven't been able to duplicate the problem.

  Have you done a traceroute to the FTP server on both Classic and OS X to see if the connection is following the same path? It seems like a longshot, but maybe for some reason the OS X connections are passing through another (slower) link.

  If you do figure it out, please let us know...

  Scott McGuire
  Fetch Softworks

  Posted 17 years ago #

• Donman Member

  We are seeing the same performace problems with one of our vendors FTP sites. OS X is slower than XP for large FTP uploads. Our uploads stabilize at about 200 kbps or less on OS X (so a 600 meg file takes around 50 minutes to upload, verses around 15 minutes on XP). Based on what I saw in this thread, I just tried Fetch 3.0.3 under classic and uploaded the file in under 12 minutes. I am trying to find out what software the vendor is using on the FTP server, I will post that when I find out.

  I am able to upload the same file to a different vendors FTP site in under 5 minutes using OS X and in around 3 minutes using XP, we have a very fast connection.

  Posted 17 years ago #

• Scott McGuire Administrator

  Hi Donman,

  Thanks for information; we'd definitely be interested in hearing what you find out about the server software, and any other information you might have.

  Thanks,

  Scott McGuire
  Fetch Softworks

  Posted 17 years ago #

• Donman Member

  the vendor we are experiencing slowness with is running a Sun e250, running Solaris 2.8 OS, and the ftp software is ncftpd v2.7.3

  Posted 17 years ago #

• Scott McGuire Administrator

  Hi Donman,

  Thanks for the information, we'll do some research.

  Do you experience the same slowdown when connecting to that server with the command-line ftp client, or other Mac OS X FTP applications as well?

  Thanks,

  Scott McGuire
  Fetch Softworks

  Posted 17 years ago #

• Donman Member

  yes, we have seen slowness with Interarchie, Transmit, and the unix CURL command, and unix ftp.

  Long live Fetch 3.0.3, too bad most of the uploaders are on MacBook Pros.

  Posted 17 years ago #

• Mikeman Member

  Just to see if the info helps, here is what my FTP server is...
  Hardware - Dell 2650
  1GB RAM
  125GB Raid 5 array

  OS - Linux 2.6.15-23 Ubuntu 6 LTS Server

  ftp server software is Pure-FTPD

  Is there any way to get more detailed info from the transcript?

  Posted 17 years ago #

• Scott McGuire Administrator

  Hi Mikeman,

  Thanks for the additional information, we're going to try to do some research. No, the trascript you posted earlier is as detailed as it gets.

  Thanks,

  Scott McGuire
  Fetch Softworks

  Posted 17 years ago #

• Jim Matthews Administrator

  We've looked into this problem some more and don't have a simple answer. It clearly is not a Fetch-specific problem, since it affects other programs as well. Our best guess is that there's an issue with the networks in question. We think that Fetch 3.0.3 handles it better than Fetch 5 because Classic applications use a different TCP implementation than native OS X apps, and the Classic TCP code may happen to be configured better for your particular situations.

  I asked a Mac networking expert, Peter Sichel of Sustainable Softworks about this problem, and he suggested using the TCP Rate tool in IPNetTuner to look at the pattern of data transfer. You may observer duplicate or retransmitted packets, or gaps indicating that one side of the transfer is waiting for acknowledgements from the other side. It would probably take an experienced TCP/IP networking engineer to make sense of what you see, and make improvements.

  Thanks,

  Jim Matthews
  Fetch Softworks

  [This message has been edited by ScottMcGuire (edited 09-01-2006).]

  Posted 17 years ago #

• gregtk Member

  We ran into a similar problem...

  Windows and Solaris can transfer a 10 MB file through our network to the Linux FTP server in the DMZ quickly (less than 2 secs). MacOS X.4.7 and MacOS X.3.9 clients cannot - speed slows down to 20 kbps. However, the Macs can transfer the same 10 MB file to a Windows FTP Server in the DMZ quickly.

  We've ruled out the Firewall, Switches, and Routers. On the same switch port, a PC can transfer quickly to Linux but not the Macs.

  Does this have anything to do with Apple not implementing SACK?

  Thanks,
  Greg

  Posted 17 years ago #

• Jim Matthews Administrator

  I hadn't heard of SACK -- could you provide a pointer to more information on that?

  Only getting 20K over ethernet is terrible. I'd look at the traffic with IPNetTunerX to see if windows are too small, or you're getting lots of retransmissions.

  Jim Matthews
  Fetch Softworks

  Posted 17 years ago #

• squim Member

  We've been having the same problem on multiple Macs (MacPro, Powerbook G4's and Desktop G5). the only thing that we've noticed different than the other posts is that Transmit will on occassion upload at our normal speed of 180-200kbps, but after the first upload will drop back to 3-20kbps. This slowdown is with Fetch, Transmit, Web based ftp. We've got two different T1 providers. With the other ISP we get the full speeds all the time with any ftp client. We've tried bypassing any NAT routers etc. and still have the isssue. Both of our ISP's are providing VoIP on the T1 line. We're perplexed. here are some IPNetMonitor pics of what we're getting. please notice the "Retransmit:" info.

  fetch
  <img src="http://leo-song.com/images/fetch-upload%20TCP%20info.jpg">

  transmit (only with first file upload)
  <img src="http://leo-song.com/images/transmit-upload%20TCP%20info.jpg">

  thanks,
  leo

  Posted 17 years ago #

• Jim Matthews Administrator

  Yes, the retransmissions are definitely the problem. Every time your Mac has to retransmit a packet the transfer comes to a temporary halt. The question is why the TCP code in OS X is having to retransmit 10% of the packets it sends. My best guess is that either the Mac or some router along the way is dropping packets because its TCP receive buffer is too small, but that's just a guess. I would recommend consulting the IPNetTunerX documentation, and/or a book on TCP troubleshooting.

  Thanks,

  Jim Matthews
  Fetch Softworks

  Posted 17 years ago #

• orm13 Member

  Have you tried turning off your IPv6 in system preferences?

  Posted 17 years ago #

• sfletcher Member

  I am also having slow upload issues. The help guy at interland said it was "Because I was running Free BSD and it was having issues connecting to profitpd." Apparently it can't figure out how to connect so it reverts to the slowest speed. Is there a workaround for this?
  All the best,
  Sarah

  Posted 17 years ago #

• Scott McGuire Administrator

  Hi Sarah,

  Do you see slow uploads if you use another FTP client, such as Interarchy or the Mac OS X command-line ftp client?

  Thanks,

  Scott McGuire
  Fetch Softworks

  Posted 17 years ago #

• sfletcher Member

  Hi Scott,
  Interarchy seems to be about the same, though since I have never used it before and I have limited time to troubleshoot this and I was unable to find the speed indicator... it was not fast. I downloaded fetch 4 and it is twice to 3 times faster than the newer version.
  all the best,
  Sarah

  Posted 17 years ago #

• Scott McGuire Administrator

  Hi Sarah,

  We're not sure why Fetch 4 works faster than Fetch 5 or Interarchy. It may be some network tuning or configuration issue; as you can see there from the messages in this thread, it appears there is an issue on some networks that makes Fetch 5 and most other FTP clients slow.

  There really aren't any settings in Fetch 5 that should affect the speed so dramatically, so I can't suggest preferences to change. If you are connecting via FTP, you might want to see if your server supports SFTP connections, and if so, try transferring files via SFTP and see if that's faster. Otherwise, I'm afraid the best we have to suggest is that if Fetch 4 is working quickly for you, that you continue to use it.

  Sorry to not have a better answer.

  Thanks,

  Scott McGuire
  Fetch Softworks

  [This message has been edited by ScottMcGuire (edited 11-07-2006).]

  Posted 17 years ago #