Q: Why do I have to download another program to do this? Doesn't my browser do that?
A: In short, no. Internet browsers and FTP clients are two separate things. I don't know of a current browser that can upload files to a server (which is what we are trying to do)
Q: OK, so why Filezilla?
A: It's free, and it's cross-platform. That means that anyone should be able to use this to upload no matter which OS you use. Oh, and did I mention that it's free?
First things first, you need to get the Filezilla client* and install it if you don't have it already.
Windows users should get the win32-setup.exe one
If you don't have permission to install programs onto your computer, that's when you want to get the .zip
*This is an important distinction, as there are ftp servers and ftp clients. The server and client do two very different things. An ftp server handles ftp requests while the ftp client makes requests and can upload/download files from the server.
The link takes you to the download page for the ftp client; one less thing to worry about.
Now that Filezilla is installed, let's open it up.
A: The Host field
B: The Username field
C: The Password field
D: The Port field
E: The quick-connect button
F: The ftp status window
G: The local site window (ie. the disks and folders in your computer)
H: This window is an extension of the local site window. It shows you the files and folders of whatever you select in the local site window
I: The remote site window (ie. the folders for your username on Kero)
J: This window is an extension of the remote site window. It shows you the files and folders of whatever is selected in the remote site window
K: The transfer queue window
The first time I opened up Filezilla I was kind of confused about what everything was, but after clicking windows and buttons things became pretty obvious.
Before you connect to Kero:
You'll need to make sure that you have the proper settings. There aren't that many that you need to worry about.
Go to Edit->Settings and click FTP (connection->ftp)
Set passive mode as the transfer mode, and check the "Send ftp keep-alive commands" box. That's all!
Passive mode can help if you have a firewall, and it doesn't hurt to have it on all the time.
The keep-alives prevent timeouts (a timeout happens when the server hasn't gotten anything from you for a certain amount of time)
Next, you should navigate to the file you are going to upload. You don't have to do this before connecting to Kero, but being prepared is good.
In the local site window, navigate to the folder where your AMV is. Let's say your AMV is in the "My Videos" folder
For most people you'd go My Computer->C:->Documents and Settings->[your computer user name]->My Documents->My Videos
You should be able to see the files and folders you have in My Videos now...along with a folder at the very top named ".."
If you've messed around with the command line of windows or unix/linux you should recognize what this does...but for the rest of us, this is the go up one folder "folder". It isn't really a folder...it just moves you up one level in your file tree (so if you're in My Videos, double clicking this would go back to the My Documents folder)
*Side note: This is a good time to write down the filesize of your video, because you're going to need it to confirm your upload later on. Filezilla lists the filesize of each file in a folder in the local site window
Connecting to Kero:
OK, now we're ready to connect to Kero
(yes, I did change the directory in the local site window)
Important!
You need to enter your video information into the catalog and request upload permission before doing this. After you request upload permission, you will get the username and password to use for uploading your video. If you try to use your org username and password, it won't work.
The layout of the member main page has changed, but moonslayer's uploading guide will still help you make the video information page and get the upload username and password
1: put kero.animemusicvideos.org in the Host field
2: put the username you got when you requested upload permission in the Username field
3: put the password you got when you requested upload permission in the Password field
4: click the Quick Connect button
You can ignore the Port field, quick connect takes care of it automatically
if everything works right, that's all you need to do to connect to Kero
if you see a red message saying "could not connect" then look at the Common Problems section below
5: Once connected to Kero, drag your file from the local site window to the remote site window
Then you sit back, relax, and wait for the upload to finish (uploading always takes a lot of time for me, even on a high speed connection)
*Side note: Filezilla's default transfer mode is AUTO. This should be fine, but if you want to be sure you should set the transfer mode to BINARY (Transfer->Transfer Type-> Binary)
When the upload is finished, click the disconnect from server button (next to the 'R' button)
You can be sure the upload is finished when the file disappears from the transfer queue (and you see a 1 pop up next to the successful transfers tab at the bottom of the transfer queue window)
Common Problems:
I see "Error: Could not connect to server" in red
You have probably either entered the username or password incorrectly. It's best to type these into their respective fields by hand instead of copy/pasting them from the username/password page you see after you request upload permission. Every time I've tried to copy/paste the username and password, something went wrong
Not only does it say that I couldn't connect to Kero, it also says "Connection refused" and "waiting to retry" above that
This is usually a sign of a firewall blocking Filezilla from connecting to Kero. Make sure passive mode is enabled and try again. You may have to tell your firewall to let traffic through on port 21 or to let Filezilla access the internet, or just turn off your firewall while you upload
I see " Error: Connection closed by server" in red
If you leave filezilla connected to a server for too long without doing anything you'll see this message. If you start your transfer and see this in the middle of your transfer you have nothing to worry about (as long as you see "File transfer successful" after the upload finishes). You can press the Quick Connect button again after the transfer finishes to make sure that your video made it onto Kero
For everything else about the uploading process, check out moonslayer's uploading guide. The member's main page layout has changed a bit since it was written, but the process the guide goes over still applies
