"failed to open stream: FTP server reports 550" when accessing file on Microsoft FTP Service using wrapper

Question

In PHP, you have wrappers for ftp and ftps to allow you access files on an FTP using fopen.

I want to use the wrapper to download a file as a stream.

My simplified code:

// eg. $url = "ftp://username:password@server.com/directory-with-dash/file.mp3";
$url = 'ftp://' . urlencode($username) . ':' . urlencode($password) . '@' . $server . $path . '/' . $filename;
$ctx = stream_context_create(array('ftp' => array('resume_pos' => 0)));
$fin = fopen($url, 'r', false, $ctx);

Error:

Warning: fopen(ftp://...@server.com/directory-with-dash/file.mp3): failed to open stream: FTP server reports 550 /directory-with-dash/file.mp3: The system cannot find the path specified. in /var/www/ftp.php on line 4

More Info:

• The same url works fine when used with wget on the same machine.
• Using PHP's FTP extension to download files works fine
• FTP server responds with 220 Microsoft FTP Service and 215 Windows_NT
• FTP server can handle passive mode
• Using filesize($url); results in Warning: filesize(): stat failed for...
• allow_url_fopen setting is On
• The same code worked fine against a different FTP-server, 215 UNIX Type: L8

What might be causing the problem?

Edit:

I have noticed that the Microsoft FTP Service doesn't place you in the root folder when you connect to the FTP, but in a subfolder:

/username

This subfolder must not be in the URL when you use wget or a web browser:

ftp://username:password@server.com/username/directory-with-dash/file.mp3 // Not available in Chrome ftp://username:password@server.com/directory-with-dash/file.mp3 // Works fine in Chrome

I have tried both urls in the PHP-code, but I get the same error still. (I typed it wrong)

Answer 1

The problem was caused by the FTP server not connecting to root (/) but rather to a subfolder (/username).

Unlike Chrome and wget, the FTP wrapper in PHP seems to require to have the full path and not the relative path:

For Chrome, wget, etc.:

ftp://username:password@server.com/directory-with-dash/file.mp3

For PHP's FTP wrapper:

ftp://username:password@server.com/username/directory-with-dash/file.mp3