Are you facing "curl: (78) RETR response: 550" or "CURLE_REMOTE_FILE_NOT_FOUND" error? This article will help you to fix it.

As part of our Server Support Services here at Ibmi Media, we regularly help customers fix cURL related errors.

In this context we shall look into the causes of this error and how to get rid of it.

More about cURL (78) retr response: 550 error?

When this error occurs, you will get error messages such as;

CURLE_REMOTE_FILE_NOT_FOUND

The resource referenced in the URL does not exist.

or

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 –:–:– –:–:– –:–:– 0

curl: (78) RETR response: 550

cURL 78 response error signifies that the requested file in the resource URL is not available or no longer exist.

This will make cURL to try to reach this file before giving up since it cannot get it back to the server.
On the other hand, the 550 code in this error message means that there is also a permission issue because the user does not have the necessary permission to access such a file.

Furthermore, using an incorrect cURL command syntax can also trigger this error.

How to fix cURL (78) retr response: 550 error?

To fix cURL 78 error, we have to apply different approaches as you will see below.

As earlier stated, an incorrect cURL command syntax can trigger this error. Therefore, see that the cURL command you are using is accurate. You might see an error message when you use command such as;

curl -u test:test “ftp://<serverip>/home/test/README.txt” -o ~/home/dir/testserver/db/log/README.txt

To fix this , the right thing to do is to use the correct path format in the command to make it look like this;

curl -u test:test ‘ftp://xx.xxx.xx.x/%2fhome/test/README.txt’ -o /home/dir/testserver/db/log/README.txt

Here you can see that it is best to use a single curly braces as well as declaring the server ip address in the command to make it accurate.

In other cases, there might be permission issued in the FTP server. The user here might not have the necessary permissions. So to fix this, the user have to be given the required permission access to the file at the resource to enable access to the file.

Finally, if this issue is as a result of the file not available at the resource location, you have to investigate it to see if the path to the file is not correct. Accessing the right path or folder where the file is present will help to fix this issue.

Need support in solving cURL errors? We are available.