So, basically, spaces in URL are evil, but FDM deliberately converts ''%20" into spaces (it really does!), which makes FDM evil, or, at least, an accessory. Am I right?

Thanks for the feedback Usher.

For 1, I know this wasn't the case because my initial attempt at downloading the files was to set FDM's Start field to manual, then after I had closed out of their FTP site I tried starting them.

For 2 and 3 I have no real comments. I'm not really familiar to the inner workings of FTP sites or proxy sites/settings.

Oh well, it's ok I guess. I just stayed till after hours then started downloading from a spare PC I had laying around. Wish there was an easier solution, but such is life I suppose.

Thanks again.

Let's assume you passed good loginn name and password to FDM.
There may be at least two reasons:
1. FTP server limits connections per user. When you open connection in a browser, you cannot open any more connection in FDM.
2. There may be some unvisible characters in path/file name. Windows GUI shell has some bugs in directory/file name support. For example it doesn't show dot as the last character and space as the first character. The real names you can see using command line FTP application.

The third reason may be Microsoft. The site uses MS FTP server, and MS is known for non-standard solutions that are incpomatible even with other MS programs. Some time ago I tried to download old files from MS FTP site and it just did NOT support passive mode. I had to use proxy site to connect to that site.

So... that's it? There's nothing else I can try?

Hmm...

Well, here's how this transpired:

I was provided with a base link ([url]ftp://www.dcilwr.datacolor.com/[/url]). From there I navigate through their folder structure per their instructions and then click the file link on their site. FDM's URL field is populated automatically... not by my copy/pasting anything into there. So if spaces are invalid and should be replaced by %20, then shouldn't this be done automatically?

But either way, I tried your suggestion and replaced all spaces with %20. Retried the download and got the same error as before. Opened up the properties again to see all of the %20s had been replaced by spaces again.

Hover mouse over your link and look what is happening - your link is really invalid.

Spaces and many other characters are not allowed in URLs. They must be encoded, and encoding depends on their place in URL - different for domain name (punycode for IDN), different for path and file name (percent encoded UTF-8 character), see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punycode
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent-encoding
In your case you should replace every space with %20 like below:
[code]ftp://www.dcilwr.datacolor.com/Datacolor%20Match%20Pigment/DMP%20V2.0.1/DMP%20ISO%20Image/dmp20build056C.iso[/code]Try the link on your own:
ftp://www.dcilwr.datacolor.com/Datacolor%20Match%20Pigment/DMP%20V2.0.1/DMP%20ISO%20Image/dmp20build056C.iso

To avoid troubles in the future you should suggest to site admins to use underscores instead of spaces.

Thank you Usher for the reply.

Use Passive Mode is already checked on mine.

I'm using Windows XP and Firefox 3.6.14. FDM was 3.0 initially, and then I downloaded and installed 3.5 RC to see if that would help, but it's the same thing.

Exact error message is as follows:
Extended Error
550 /Datacolor Match Pigment/DMP V2.0.1/DMP ISO Image/dmp20build056C.iso: The system cannot find the path specified.

The full address path under Download Properties in the URL field is (and it is correct): ftp://www.dcilwr.datacolor.com/Datacolor Match Pigment/DMP V2.0.1/DMP ISO Image/dmp20build056C.iso

You won't be able to test this for yourself, however. The company I work for has been dealing with another company in obtaining a second copy of some software it purchased from them. They provided us with the above ftp site and told us where to find the iso files within there that we needed. It's all password protected, however, for obvious reasons.

Go to menu Options | Settings | Downloads | New download, click "Advanced" button, go to "Protocol" tab and check "[b]Use passive mode[/b]" for FTP.
And don't forget that the best way to get help is to provide:
- OS, FDM and browser version;
- exact error message;
- a link (URL) to test.

I'm trying to download some files from an ftp site, but I keep getting an extended error saying the system cannot find the path specified. I've double and triple checked what FDM has as the download location and it is correct. I can do the download using my browser (Firefox). But FDM is not doing any of the files there. Are there settings in FDM that I can tweak for this that I just haven't found, or is it merely some ftp sites are not FDM "friendly"? Are there any work arounds for this? I could use my browser, but these are over 500 MB downloads that'll take easily over an hour a piece. I need to be able to throttle back the download speeds so as to not have them eat up all the bandwidth, but I don't know of any settings internal (or add-on) with Firefox or IE that can do this.