Overview

This post will provide you an overview of what might be causing your site to upload slowly, or what might be stopping you from uploading at all.

Does DreamHost limit upload speeds?

Upload speeds are unrestricted at GreggHost. The following are the most prevalent causes of sluggish uploads:

Network connection is bad
The Internet connection in your area is slow.
You’re being blocked by a firewall application.
You are being blocked by your router.
Other factors may exist, but these are the most typical ones.

The network connection is unreliable.
If you can upload but the speed is slow, it’s possible that your site connection has timed out. It’s also conceivable that your local Internet provider is bottlenecking your upload speed.

Tracing your route
A traceroute allows you to detect problems with the connection between your location and the server. If you see that hops are clocking out, you should contact your ISP because this could be affecting your upload speeds. More information on how traceroutes operate and how to use them may be found here:

Traceroute
Check your Internet connection speed.
Your computer’s ability to upload to the Internet limits the speed at which your data may be uploaded. Here’s where you can check your connection speed:

www.speedtest.net
If the test results are unacceptable, you should talk to your ISP about what steps you may take to increase your speed.

I can’t connect using FTP at all
If the FTP connection does not enable you to upload at all, something on your local network or computer is most likely preventing the connection. Disable your firewall and see what happens. FTP uses port 21, which is blocked by many firewalls. If the FTP connection works when your firewall is turned off, you’ll need to change your firewall settings to enable port 21. (or port 22 for SFTP).

Port 21 can also be blocked by routers. If turning off your firewall doesn’t fix the problem, ensure sure your router is set to accept port 21 traffic. If you’ve configured your firewall and router to enable access but still can’t upload, please contact GreggHost support for assistance.

Errors in a website’s upload
If uploads fail when using a WordPress plugin or another PHP-based uploading solution for your site, it’s possible that you’ve reached the limits of your PHP settings. This could be the situation if you get 500 errors when trying to upload or if the site spins continuously with nothing happening. To boost upload limitations and execution times, you might want to add a custom phprc to your site.

More information can be found in the following articles:

How can I add a phprc file to my website?
Increasing the upload limit in PHP