Unable to list or access remote files via ftp

[guivho <news@vanhoecke.org>]

I am using GNU Emacs 23.2.92.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin, NS
apple-appkit-1038.35) of 2011-01-15 on black.porkrind.org on an iMac
running OSX 10.6.6.

When I try to list the home directory on my website with C-x C-d
/ftp.vanhoecke.org:vanhoecke/www.vanhoecke.org/web/content ange-ftp
immediately starts to access the remote ftp server as soon as I type
the ':', but it fails. Here's the transcript of the internal ange-ftp
buffer:

ftp> open ftp.vanhoecke.org
Connected to ftp.vanhoecke.org.
220 Microsoft FTP Service
ftp> user "guido.vanhoecke@vanhoecke.org" Turtle Power!
331 Password required for guido.vanhoecke@vanhoecke.org.
230 User logged in.
Remote system type is Windows_NT.
ftp> hash
Hash mark printing on (1024 bytes/hash mark).
ftp> pwd
Remote directory: /
ftp> pwd
Remote directory: /
ftp> passive on
Passive mode: on; fallback to active mode: off.
ftp> get ~ /dev/null
local: /dev/null remote: ~
229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||5504|)
550 The system cannot find the file specified.
ftp> get ~ /dev/null
local: /dev/null remote: ~
229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||5505|)
550 The system cannot find the file specified.
ftp> pwd
Remote directory: /
ftp> pwd
Remote directory: /
ftp>

The corresponding section of the *Messages* buffer reads:

Opening FTP connection to ftp.vanhoecke.org...done
Logging in as user guido.vanhoecke@vanhoecke.org@ftp.vanhoecke.org...done
Getting PWD... [2 times]
Warning! Unable to get home directory
Trying passive mode......
expanding ~... [2 times]
Getting PWD... [2 times]
expanding ~... [2 times]
Getting PWD... [2 times]
byte-code: Unable to obtain CWD
Mark set

The remote ftp server uses the unix directory listing format, and the
password is provided through my ~/.netrc. The userid provided to me by
my ISP is an email address: guido.vanhoecke@vanhoecke.org. This is an
unusual userid, but I have no problem addressing this server from
within Midnight Commander (using
/#ftp:ftp.vanhoecke.org/vanhoecke/www.vanhoecke.org/web/content as
address) nor from within Vim (using
ftp://ftp.vanhoecke.org/vanhoecke/www.vanhoecke.org/web/content/). I
am pretty sure that I managed to edit these remote files from within
Emacs before, from Ubuntu as well as from Microsoft XP.

In order to test this without interference from my ~/.emacs and
customizations, I launched 'emacs -nw -q' in a terminal and tried to
list the remote directory. Same result: it tries to get the ~
directory and fails.

Funny thing is that it works on 'GNU Emacs 23.2.1
(i386-mingw-nt6.1.7600) of 2010-05-08 on G41R2F1' running in a VMWare
Windows7 client on this same iMac:

open ftp.vanhoecke.org
Connected to ftp.vanhoecke.org.
220 Microsoft FTP Service
user "guido.vanhoecke@vanhoecke.org" Turtle Power!
331 Password required for guido.vanhoecke@vanhoecke.org.
230 User logged in.
hash
Hash mark printing On  ftp: (2048 bytes/hash mark) .
pwd
257 "/" is current directory.
cd "/"
250 CWD command successful.
ls -al c:/Users/guivho/AppData/Local/Temp/ange-ftp2324Fbq
200 PORT command successful.
125 Data connection already open; Transfer starting.
226 Transfer complete.
ftp: 1194 bytes received in Seconds Kbytes/sec.


Any suggestions about how I could tackle this problem? I may be a
viper user, but it still is kind of embarassing that I have to launch
Gvim to edit my remote files...

TIA for any advice and/or help,

guivho.