How To Fix FileZilla error “connection attempt failed with eai_noname”

If you’re trying to connect to your site via FTP using FileZilla, you may find the following error:

Connection attempt failed with “EAI_NONAME – Neither nodename nor servname provided, or not known”.

Here’s a screenshot of the error while using FileZilla’s “Quickconnect” button:

FileZilla generates the “EAI_NONAME” response code when it’s unable to connect to your server. This can be due to many reasons as explained below.

What does EAI_NONAME Mean?

The “EAI” in the “eai_noname” error stands for “Error Address Information”. It means that for some reason or the other, FileZilla can’t find your server with the information you provided. It’s not a problem with the port or any other setting – FileZilla literally can’t see your site!

How to Fix the “connection attempt failed with eai_noname” Error

Try the following steps to fix the problem. The first ones are obvious, but mistakes can always happen, so double-check everything to make sure.

Fix #1: Are you Using the Right Hostname?

An obvious solution is to check your hostname for spelling errors and make sure that your hostname is resolving to your FTP address.

Some web hosts create a separate subdomain for FTP, so you might need to connect using that address instead of your main domain name. So if your site is:

example.com

You might need to connect instead to:

ftp.example.com

To check this, go into your web host’s FTP section and see whether they’ve given you a specific hostname to which you need to connect an FTP session. For most hosts using cPanel, if you click “FTP Accounts”, you’ll see a list of FTP accounts and when you click “Configure FTP Client”, you should get the FTP hostname or server details as shown here:

If you’re not using cPanel, your web hosting control panel software should have something similar. If not, you’ll have to check what they use on forums or by contacting their support.

Fix #2: Check your DNS Propagation

If you’ve just bought your new site and have changed your DNS server, check to ensure your DNS changes have taken hold. To do this, visit dnschecker.org, type in your server name, and ensure it resolves to your server’s IP address. In general, this shouldn’t be a problem unless your nameservers are very low priority.

For example, you should see your nameservers propagate in a few minutes if you use Cloudflare. But for some web hosts, it could also take a few hours. This is why I always switch over my DNS nameservers to Cloudflare immediately.

Fix #3: Ensure that You’ve “Grey Clouded” your Cloudflare FTP Domain

If you need to connect to your FTP server using an FTP subdomain and use Cloudflare as your DNS manager, you must “grey cloud” your FTP subdomain.

This means that in the Cloudflare DNS settings, find the record that corresponds to something like this:

CNAME -> ftp

Click “Edit” next to the record, and then under “Proxy status” toggle the button to “off” so that it now says “DNS only” and the Cloud icon turns from orange to grey as shown in this screenshot:

This prevents Cloudflare from sitting as a proxy between you and your server regarding requests to the “ftp” subdomain. Normally, Cloudflare intercepts all requests to these subdomains, which can trigger the “connection attempt failed with eai_noname” error from FileZilla.

Depending on your configuration, you might have to do something similar with your mail servers or any other service you need to access through your hostname.

Preventing the “connection attempt failed with eai_noname” Error

Here are two things you can do to prevent this error from occurring in the future.

1. Use the IP Address Directly Instead of the Hostname

The most failsafe way to prevent the “connection attempt failed with eai_noname” on FileZilla is to use an IP address instead of the hostname while attempting to connect. This way, you don’t need to worry about things like DNS propagation, Cloudflare interference, and whether or not you’re using the right subdomain for the FTP address. An IP address comes “pre-resolved”, so to speak, so you don’t need to worry about anything else.

To find your IP address on your NameHero dashboard, log into your account and go to your cPanel admin area. There, based on your theme, you should see the current IP address that your web host has assigned to you, as shown here:

Use this in the connection settings in FileZilla, and you should be good to go!

IP Address Changes can Pose a Problem

IP address changes don’t happen often, but they sometimes do. If you’re on a VPS, however, you don’t need to worry as you probably get a dedicated IP address from your web host. But web hosts can sometimes change the IP address for shared hosting accounts. For example, if your host migrates your server to a new data center, the IP address can change.

I’ve used shared web hosting in the past for over a decade, and during that time, my IP address has changed just once. So it’s not something that happens regularly, but it’s something to watch out for.

This is the only reason to use a hostname instead of an IP address in FileZilla since if your address changes, the hostname will automatically resolve to the new one. But for all the problems that hostname resolution causes, I would suggest you simply use the IP address instead and manually update it if it changes.

2. Increasing the Connection Timeout on FileZilla

Sometimes, it helps to increase the connection timeout to prevent the “connection attempt failed with eai_noname” error. It should not happen often, but there have been a few cases where FileZilla is waiting for a response and doesn’t receive it, so it issues this error.

To change the connection timeout, open your FileZilla settings by clicking “Edit” and “Settings” as shown here:

This brings up the configuration screen with many sections on the right-hand side. Click the very first one called “Connection” as shown below, and then adjust the box labeled “Timeout in seconds”:

By default, FileZilla times out after 20 seconds of waiting for a response. You can increase the number to a much higher figure if you want, or you could just make it zero to disable it entirely instead.

As I said, it’s unlikely that this is the source of the error, but it’s been known to happen, so no harm in giving it a shot!

Summary

The “connection attempt failed with eai_noname” error has a very simple cause – FileZilla is attempting to connect to your server with the hostname or IP address you provided and cannot find what it’s looking for. The most common reason for this is a failure of the hostname to resolve to the correct IP address. Check your DNS settings, make sure that your changes have propagated correctly, ensure that you have the “grey cloud” for the “ftp” subdomain in Cloudflare, and adjust your timeout settings.

One of the above solutions should fix the problem. I hope you found this tutorial helpful!