Fix a corrupt history database for WatchFTP

When your computer abruptly shuts down or crashes, it can happen WatchFTP's history database becomes corrupt. Your task can not run anymore.

When this has happened you will typically get a message about SQL Errors (can not select from the housekeeping table). When you start the WatchFTP control center it tries to fix this but sometimes it needs a little help.

How to fix this issue

You will need to delete the current (corrupt) database, here is how:

• Open the WatchFTP Control Center
• Make sure the problem task is stopped
• Right-click the task and select "Explore Task Directory" from the popup menu. This will open Windows Explorer, typically inside (a subdirectory of) "C:\ProgramData\WatchFTP"
• Make sure you are in a subdirectory with the same name of the task
• Delete all files with names that start with "history", it is typically only one but there could be a few
• Stop the WatchFTP Control Center and start it again, this will create a new (empty) history database

After this, your task should run fine again.

 

Please note this will not work for WatchDirectory. A future blog will explain how to fix a WatchDirectory corrupt database.

WatchDirectory - Could not create temporary file

 

If you try to edit or create a WatchDirectory task and receive a message like

"Could not create a temporary file"

Here is the reason and how to resolve this issue.

Why this happens

While you create or edit a task the WatchDirectory Control Center needs to store your new settings somewhere. It can not be inside the WatchDirectory settings directory itself because you may cancel editing. So WatchDirectory asks Windows what the directory for "temporary files" is.

All your changes are made to a temporary file inside that directory. When you press OK, the file is moved to the WatchDirectory settings directory.

The problem here is Windows tells WatchDirectory it can create temporary files in some directory (something like C:\Temp), but there is a problem. Typically the directory does not exist or (not so common) WatchDirectory is not allowed to write/create/delete files inside the directory.

How to resolve

Here are the steps you need to follow to fix this:

1. Stop the WatchDirectory Control Center
2. Open a Windows command prompt by running cmd.exe
3. On the command prompt enter the following 2 commands
   SET TMP
   SET TEMP

Those commands will respond with the name of 1 or 2 directories (they typically are the same directory). Now you need to make sure those directories exist and "Everyone" has the privilege to create/change/delete files inside them.

Log4J Security threat (no worries)

The recent Log4j, CVE-2021-44228 security threat

Our programs do not use the Log4j package for logging. They are not written in the Java language so can not use this package.
(more info on the security threat)

The new European Privacy Law (GDPR / AVG)

Your Privacy

Ok, we need to write something to be in accordance with European laws.
Here is the short version: "You're OK, we don't use your data in any way we would want our data to be used".

If you are "just a visitor" on our websites

We use a third party company, used by many other companies, statcounter.com who uses cookies on our sites. The info we get from them is which pages you visit and if you encounter any broken links.
We use this information to see if our websites are working properly, we don't know who you are.

If you contact us

If you use our Contact Us form on our company website, we will obviously use your name/email to respond. After that we will not store or use your name/email anymore. We don't spam.

If you are a customer

Here it gets interesting.
We sell our programs (mainly) through our American reseller BMT-Micro. Some sales are through other resellers, some directly with us. In all cases we receive the information of the buyer ("you") that was entered on their website. We do not receive any credit card information!

The information we receive include your name, email and address (street, city, country). We only use your name and email to send you your license information.

When we have an important (major) update to the program you bought we send you an email. This email always has an option to unsubscribe, not receive those emails anymore. You can expect an email once or twice each year.

Third Parties

We do not sell or give your information to anyone. Obviously.

Ownership of this information

If you want to be "forgotten", email us saying so at our Contact Us form. We will remove your license information (name, email, address etc) from our customer database. Note that will also mean you won't be able to lookup your license information anymore at this page. Your license will continue to work but if you want to move it to another computer we can not help you anymore.

Questions ?

If you have further questions about this, please Contact Us.

WatchFTP version 4.1 Released

4.1.0 (January 7, 2018)

• Fixed: Connecting with new versions of WS_FTP SFTP servers failed.
• Improved: When you use Keep Session Log for debugging issues, those logs could get very large. Logs older than a few days are now zipped (and deleted after 7 days).
• Improved: On the Advanced Settings you can now set a timeout for WatchFTP to connect, previously WatchFTP would always abort after 20 seconds.
• Fixed: WatchFTP would ignore all files/directories with names starting with a ".". By default WatchFTP will still ignore those but you can now tell WatchFTP to process those files on Advanced Settings.
• New: Create local directories early. Older WatchFTP releases created local (Windows) directories as soon as they were detected on your FTP server. Version 4 only creates those directories when needed (for a file to download). You can now set an option to restore the old behavior.

This is a Free Upgrade for everyone who has a "version 4" license. Basically everyone who bought after May 1, 2016.

Just install this new release "on top" of your current version so it keeps all your tasks and settings.

20% Discount on all our programs and upgrades

We didn't do anything on Cyber-monday and got complaints ;-)

20% Discount on our programs during December 2017

What should we name this? December-Discount, sounds a bit dull. Anyway, use the discount-code DECEMBER in our webshop to get an immediate 20% discount on new licenses for our programs. This also applies to Upgrades to WatchFTP version 4.

WatchFTP version 4 released - Reminder

In case you missed our newsletter or previous blogs about the new release of our FTP monitor program WatchFTP, this quick reminder.

• See what's new here
• Owners of older (version 3) license(s), check if your upgrade is free.
• Only 10 days left (until July 1st, 2017) until the upgrade price will be $49 per license, get it now for just $29 per license.

WatchDirectory v4.9.5 released

We just released a new version of our File System Monitor WatchDirectory. This is a free upgrade for all customers. Just install the new evaluation version "on top" of your version and it will automatically see your tasks and licenses.

New/Fixed in this release

• Fixed: WatchDirectory crashed on (some) Asian language systems.
• Improved: The new System.Mail now allows you to connect to SMTP servers without username/password.
• Improved: The Print PDF task has several new settings.
• Fixed: The email reports of the Audit task weren't properly sent at 6am.
• Fixed: Large file uploads by the FTP task didn't properly report their progress.
• Improved: The Unzip task now supports password protected zips.

WatchFTP v4.0.2 released

Just to let you know we released an important update for WatchFTP.

Fixed

In some cases (mostly when connecting to an SFTP server), WatchFTP failed to connect to the server. This has been fixed.

Download

Download this new release here. Install it "on top" of your current version so it will keep your settings and tasks.

Buy

When you are ready to buy, visit our webshop to get a license. If you already own a previous version, your upgrade may be free, see Upgrade to WatchFTP v4

WatchFTP version 4 released

New in this major WatchFTP version 4 release

Private Key Support		Use a Private Key (PuTTY or OpenSSH format) to login on SFTP sites.
Dynamic Naming		You now have full control which name/location is used for downloaded files. For example, download to C:\Down\{dt-yyyy}\{dt-mm}\{dt-dd}\{filename}
Multithreaded Downloads		WatchFTP can now download multiple files concurrently.
Task Groups		There is a new menu that allows you to show "All Tasks (Ctrl+0)", "Running Tasks (Ctrl+1)" or "Stopped Tasks (Ctrl+2)". Create your own task groups if you have a lot of tasks.
...and a lot more...		Support for the latest encryptions on secure connections. The Email Action can now email different people depending on the location of detected files. Lots of small other improvements...

Download

Download this new release here. Install it "on top" of your current version so it will keep your settings and tasks. You can try WatchFTP free for 30 days.

Buy

When you are ready to buy, visit our webshop to get a license. If you already own a previous version, your upgrade may be free, see Upgrade to WatchFTP v4.

WatchFTP v4 final beta

On our forum we have uploaded the last beta for the new major release of WatchFTP.

New in version 4

• Private key support for SFTP connections.
• Task Groups - This will come in handy if you run a lot of tasks.
• Dynamic Naming for downloaded files - for example download your files to C:\Downloads\{filetitle}_{dt:year}{dt:month}{dt:day}.{extension}
• Support for the latest encryption algorythms on secure connections.
• Multithreaded downloads - download several files at once.

Download

Visit the Beta Forum for the download and more information.

WatchFTP 3.8.0 released - Free Upgrade

We just released a new version of our FTP Monitor Program WatchFTP. If you already own a license, this is a free upgrade. Just install the new version "on top" of your current install.

What's New

If you use a secure connection to your FTP site and use Passive mode to connect (the default), you can now enable the new option "Force Host IP". Here the explanation from the WatchFTP help file:

When you use a secure connection all commands and responses between WatchFTP and the FTP server are encrypted. When the FTP server is behind a NAT router, the router can not translate the internal IP addresses (typically 192.168....) to externally accessible IP addresses so they remain unchanged in the FTP response lines to WatchFTP.
When this option is set, WatchFTP will ignore the (unaccessible) IP addresses in the server's responses and always uses the IP address of the FTP server itself.