Ingest through FTP server on Barco

[Marin Stemmelen]

Hi all, I'm new on the forum, I hope this has its place here, and I hope this is not a duplicate of another post. Please let me know if that has already been answered !



So here's my problem :

I'm trying to connect my Barco IMCP to a local ftp server on a PC, so I can ingest DCPs directly from my PC without copying on USB drive.
As I receive most DCPs through online transfers, my idea is just to download the DCPs into that ftp folder, so I can ingest it directly.

I've been able to create the ftp Server, that is now perfectly accessible from my local network once the credentials are entered.
Even on the Communicator software, after adding the new ftp server, it is correctly showing on the list of servers, and the test returned as Sucessful : here's what it says : "
ping 192.168.100.95 -c 3
PING 192.168.100.95 (192.168.100.95): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.100.95: seq=0 ttl=127 time=0.708 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.100.95: seq=1 ttl=127 time=0.633 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.100.95: seq=2 ttl=127 time=0.647 ms

--- 192.168.100.95 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.633/0.662/0.708 ms
TEST-STEP - Pinging - Success - ping OK

ip route get 192.168.100.95
192.168.100.95 via 192.168.254.241 dev eth2 src 192.168.254.243
TEST-STEP - Routing - Success - a valid route was found

curlftpfs -o connect_timeout=10 -o allow_other dcp_admin:******@192.168.100.95:21/
0 directories and 0 files found at root path

TEST-STEP - Mounting - Success - storage is accessible"

So on this end, all looks good ! Communicator says ftp storage is accessible !

However, when I copy a DCP into that folder, the IMCP is unable to see it, nor to ingest it. It doesn't say anything about an error or anything. But it acts like the folder was empty... Nothing shows up.

Any idea of what I am missing ?


For info, projector is a BARCO DP4K-17BLP with the Alchemy ICMP

Thank you !!

Marin

[James Gardiner]

Just to be clear.. you have used Filezilla or a similar FTP client to connect to the FTP-server, as the ICMP would be doing, and can see the files.. But the ICMP cannot?

[Marin Stemmelen]

Hey James, thanks for your answer.

Yes, if I'm connecting to the ftp server through another windows computer on the network, or from FileZilla, I can see the files, copy them, add new ones, etc.

But the IMCP, even though it saying connection is successful, does not show any DCP to ingest, like they weren't here.

[James Gardiner]

I think others may have more experience with Barco ICMP, but if it was me..
I would turn on logging on the FTP-server and log every message. Then watch the logs when something that works logs in and when the ICMP logs in to see what's happening.
Currently, I would suspect a bug in the ICMP, but that is unlikely. Is the ICMP up to date software-wise?

Others with more experience with Barco ICMP may have more insight.

[Carsten Kurz]

Marin - can you tell us exactly how you try to connect to that FTP server? Can you tell us or post screen shots of the ICMP network interface and FTP server setup?

I use different FTP servers from our Barco ICMP - Filezilla on a Windows PC, our Gofilex-Box, our Sony server. Not a single problem, they all worked right from the start. I can show you my settings if I get to that system tomorrow or so. As James says, Filezilla writes a log. Maybe that log will tell us something.

Can you show us a screenshot of the directory containing the DCPs you are trying to ingest?

There are some ingest settings in Barco Webcommander as well, but they will usually not prevent the ICMP from seeing DCPs - they just control how deep into folders the Barco will browse - check these settings. Make sure you have all DCP filters disabled on the left side of the ingest window.

[Harold Hallikainen]

Maybe permissions on the files and the directory holding the files?

[Magnus Eriksson]

What FTP server are you using on the PC?
And, as Carsten wrote, check the ingest settings in Webcommander.

M.E.

Settings.jpg

[Leo Enticknap]

If you're using a Windows PC's internal FTP server (Internet Information Services), you need to change the directory browsing method from DOS to Unix, as so.

Open IIS manager:

alchemy_windows_FTPserver_runIIS.png

Now open your FTP site and go to FTP Directory Browsing:

alchemy_windows_FTPserver_directoryoptions.PNG

Finally, change the listing style option from DOS (which it will be by default) to Unix:

alchemy_windows_FTPserver.png
I can't claim the credit for having figured this out: I had the same problem a while back, and someone else on F-T, and I'm ashamed to admit that I've forgotten who, posted the above solution.

[Pete Naples]

I've set this up on a couple of customer sites.

Using FileZilla Server on a W10 PC.

It works just as you would expect.

[Magnus Eriksson]

Leo, that was me
I don´t claim to be a computer voodoo guy, but I was just so frustrated that it didn´t work on my ICMP. So I just fiddled around in Ils manager and thought:
Hm, MS-DOS or UNIX. Well the Alchemy runs some sort of Linux so let´s try that.
Dolby DSS and Doremi/IMS also run Linux, but they don´t seem to care about this
/M.E.

[James Gardiner]

The MS-DOS/UNIX format setting. The rule of thumb is to NEVER use the MS-DOS format. It breaks so many things in my experience. I didn't mention it as it's such a default decision for me, it didn't occur to me to mention it.
This is very likely the cause.
However, I would also recommend using FileZilla server over windows. It has active development. Defaults to UNIX file listing format. (As it should) and I think you would have had a better experience at implementing this.

[Leo Enticknap]

Filezilla server uses a lot of RAM, even when running in the background, and updating it does not happen automatically with Windows - you have to install new versions. Apart from that one glitch with ICMPs (now solved, thanks to Magnus), I've never had any problems with the built-in Windows IIS FTP server.

[Marcel Birgelen]

The IIS FTP server generally works fine and also produces UNIX-style directories, which many FTP clients depend on. Still, I somehow prefer FileZilla Server on systems that don't have IIS already installed. But it's clear that it's considered legacy by Microsoft as it hasn't seen any real love in years now.

Right now, FTP is in the process of being phased out by the likes of Microsoft. FTP support is being removed from web-browsers. So, what will be the future of simple file sharing across the Internet? WebDAV?!

[Leo Enticknap]

As of now, at any rate, digital cinema remains heavily dependent on FTP of the crude, unencrypted variety, for transferring content between TMS and SMS storage. If it is to be abandoned for that application, the entire industry (possibly by means of a DCI or ISDCF standard) will need to agree on something to replace it. Personally, I don't see any need: as media LANs are not supposed to have Internet connectivity anyways and the option exists for encrypting actual DCPs, the security weaknesses of plain FTP are moot, and it's fast enough (given a gigabit connection from TMS to SMS, and fast enough switches) to be adequate in most if not all movie theater situations.

[Ekaterina Ochagova]

Hello everyone,

We have the same problem and found the solution mentioned here (the MS-DOS/UNIX format setting), but we are prefer the FileZilla Server and have to use very old version to work around the problem.

I thought the cause of the problem is the "-a" parameter sent by the Barco ICMP with the LIST command to retrieve a directory's content:

image.png

Later versions of the FileZilla Server understands wrong this parameter because it is non-standard and not supported by FileZilla anymore. I read about it here.

But people here said that the FileZilla Server works fine with the Barco ICMP. Can someone tell me please, are you using any special settings in the FileZilla Server or ICMP or Windows?