You could try to play with the timeout settings in Filezilla, see last answer in this thread:
https://community.synology.com/enu/forum/17/post/53656

You can try WinSCP and see if it does the same thing. filename: winscp440setup

Try using Total Commander instead of FileZilla.

It works even in Win 3.1 and has an excellent FTP client built into the main program.

Are you using the unofficial SP3 for Win98?

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-02-20, 05:51:

Are you using the unofficial SP3 for Win98?

Thanks for the suggestions so far, but this last one...yes indeed, I'm using USP3. Anything in there that explains the behavior I am seeing?

The versions past 3.03 start to have whole bunch of DLLs from newer windowses (silently replacing many of the existing ones) without any kind of real testing and they can cause lot of headaches.

OK, haven't had much issues with them myself, on the contrary it mostly helped as far as I can tell, but I 100% believe they could have issues or unwanted side effects! cyclone3d's message sounded like it was a known issue, so hopefully there's a known fix 😀 as said the behavior is the same on several very different machines.

In the meantime I may try to reinstall a clean Win98SE with no USP3 and see if the same happens.

You may also like to avoid installing IE6 and take IE5.5 SP2 in favour.
But if you must, replace IE6 versions of the files browseui.dll & browselc.dll with their IE5.5 SP2 counterparts:
http://www.frankprovo.com/win98ie6filesproblem.htm
https://www.creopard.de/2020/06/Windows-98-mi … -nicht-mehr.htm

Mmmh that read was VERY interesting, it really sounded like that was it, as USP3 has IE6 as a requirement...but I just tried (replaced the 2 dll files) and the problem still happens...mmmh. Maybe there's more to it.

I'll go on with the Win98SE reinstall with no USP3 as a test.

Since you'll reinstall anyways, you can also give this a try:
https://msfn.org/board/topic/84451-98-fe-98-s … shell32dll-fix/

The only updates I use for Win98SE are the official Microsoft ones from the 2004 update CD which is available on archive.org and on vogonsdrivers.

For USB support on newer hardware and for USB storage support, I use NUSB.

I tried the newer USP3 packs and they all cause major issues, especially with the file explorer and can cause file transfers to hang.

OK so can say it is *not* USP3/IE6. Freshly installed Win98SE, drivers, FileZilla only, and same behavior. Copying a 600MB iso, progress bar goes to 2% normally, then Explorer freezes for 2-3 minutes (only mouse cursor stays responsive and moves normally), then suddenly file transfer is at 100% and Explorer is responsive again. And file stays at 100% in the FileZilla queue forever, with elapsed time counter still going, and time left counter at 00:00:00.

It's weird to me because it really looks like those documented explorer freezes with big files, but as a fresh Win98SE does the same... I will now go through the other suggestions (FTP server settings and/or clients).

1541 wrote on 2023-02-20, 13:56:

Since you'll reinstall anyways, you can also give this a try:
https://msfn.org/board/topic/84451-98-fe-98-s … shell32dll-fix/

Now I remember reading this page some time ago...will try again, but pretty sure the same will happen if IE5.5SP2 didn't fix it, as it supposedly fixes the same issue.

OK, guess it looked so much like the usual explorer-related issues that I missed the forest for the trees.

As expected the shell32.dll fix did not help either. Then tried WinSCP, and it doesn't show the same behavior at all. I've wasted enough time on this issue, so WinSCP it will be going forward 😁

Thanks for the help!