So I’ve mentioned before about Panic Transmit FTP tool for Mac and I’ve always used it. Recently though I’ve ran into a problem with with Transmit. When I edit a file on the server, sometimes when I hit save, it gives the following error:

Could not upload file “filename”
server said
transfer aborted. data connection closed
error-132: could not send file to remote host

The big problem isn’t even that I can’t save it, the BIG problem is that after this error usually means that the file becomes blank (or corrupted I guess). So the code in the file is basically gone…unless if I still have the file open. Then I have to immediately copy the code and then relaunch Transmit and paste it back into that file. It’s a pain in the u know what to have to do that. It’s also been happening more and more often. I’ve also had it happen where I try to download the file to the remote folder and it made that one blank too - that is BAD! I’m actually afraid of using it for now. I’ve wrote to Panic, but didn’t get anything back. I’ve search on google and only found one mentioned of something similar, but that it was due to their linksys gateway. So it could be something to do with the airport, but it didn’t happen much before. So I had to download a version of Fetch to try out. I remember using Fetch back in the days because I remember the animated running dog.

I also just found this post about comparing the speed of Interarchy (which I have never heard of until now…so of course I’ll be trying that out shortly), Transmit and Fetch.

Here is an old post about the different FTP client software. Like I said, it’s old and the versions are not what it use to be.

So far with trying Fetch, I do like Transmit for the side by side panel of remote files and local files. The drag and drop ability of Fetch is nice, but it does tend to get a little messy since you have that open and you have your local files open. Maybe I just haven’t played around with it enough to get all the features out of it yet.

For now, I’ll just have to be dissapointed at Transmit until I hear back from them and try out Interarchy. The cost of Interarchy is higher than both at $59 for a single user license. Fetch is $25 and Transmit is $29.95. So for $59, Interarchy better be good.

UPDATE: Oct 28th, 2007 - Recently the problem seem to have resolved itself. I didn’t make any changes, but it could have been a server issue as well. Maybe server time out? Since it doesn’t seem to do the same with another server. Anyway, so far I haven’t ran into the problem again.

Some people have asked what’s the best FTP program to use. It all depends on what you need to do.

The FTP program I like to use for the MAC is from Panic called Transmit. It does everything from synchronization to the ability to set permission on remote files. The thing I like most about it is that it’s just plain simple to use. You can also add Transmit to your dashboard and drag and drop your files that way.

As for the PC, I have used CuteFTP in the past. Current version is CuteFTP 8 and you can download a version to try before you buy. I can’t remember much about it since it’s been a long time since I’ve needed to use the PC for file transfer, but I do remember it was easy to use as well.