Pure-FTPd shows down in Service Status suddenly after the update/restart. While connecting to FTP, it shows ECONNREFUSED – Connection refused by server. We will be seeing the error or facing issue in various ways as mentioned below. These errors occurs in WHM/cPanel with PureFTPs Server selection.

Error while changing FTP Server

While switching from Pro-FTPd to Pure-FTPd in WHM/cPanel getting the error as pureftpd has failed.

# /scripts/restartsrv_pureftpd Waiting for “pureftpd” to restart “warn [restartsrv_base] The ‘pureftpd’ service’s PID file ‘/var/run/pure-ftpd.pid’ did not appear after 10 seconds. “warn [restartsrv_base] The ‘pureftpd’ service’s PID file ‘/var/run/pure-ftpd.pid’ did not appear after 10 seconds. “warn [restartsrv_base] The ‘pureftpd’ service’s PID file ‘/var/run/pure-ftpd.pid’ did not appear after 10 seconds. “failed. Service Error (XID vv6ane) The “pureftpd” service failed to start. Startup Log Starting pure-config.pl: [ OK ] Starting pure-authd: pureftpd has failed. Contact your system administrator if the service does not automagically recover.

Error received in FileZilla or FTP Client

In Port 21 

Error: Could not connect to server
Status: Waiting to retry…
Status: Resolving address of gowdhamsubramaniam.com
Status: Connecting to 5.xxx.xx.xxx:21…
Status: Connection attempt failed with “ECONNREFUSED – Connection refused by server”.

In Port 22 – SFTP

Error: Could not connect to server
Status: Disconnected from server
Status: Connecting to gowdhamsubramaniam.com…
Response: fzSftp started, protocol_version=11
Command: open “sg@gowdhamsubramaniam.com” 22

Solution – Workaround

1. Browse to “WHM Home” >> “Service Configuration” >> “FTP Server Configuration”, and set “Broken Clients Compatibility” to “Yes” to workaround the issue with the FTP client.
   
   If you have already set the “Broken Clients Compatibility” to “Yes” and still facing the issue, then try the second workaround to fix this pure-ftpd failed issue. 
2. The reason for this error is that Pure-ftpd service doesn”t work with {CallUploadScript} set to (yes) in /etc/pure-ftpd.conf configuration file. That is because the pure-uploadscript service is not getting started while restarting the pure-ftpd service.
   Run the following command via SSH for fix this issue:
   # /usr/sbin/pure-uploadscript -B -r /etc/pure-ftpd.conf
   Restart the service :
   # /etc/init.d/pure-ftpd restart (or) /bin/systemctl restart pure-ftpd.service (or) service pure-ftpd restart

If the above fix didn’t help you, feel free to drop your issue in the comment and you can expect a response in a short time.