SFTP gives "Cannot initialize SFTP: Timed out waiting for SFTP server version"

[Rodney]

Problem: After upgrading the cygwin Base package to 1.5.25-11 (released March 9 2008), attempting to connect to a host via SFTP eventually times out with message:

"Cannot initialize SFTP: Timed out waiting for SFTP server version"

The problem is definitely somewhere in this newer version of cygwin1.dll and is NOT a SlickEdit problem (probably something to do with new pipe handling code from what I have read on their newsgroups, but I am not sure).

To correct the problem you have some options:

1. Revert back to version 1.5.25-7 of the 'cygwin' Base package. You can do this from the Cygwin setup.exe.

2. Download and apply the latest snapshot of cygwin1.dll (version 1.7 I believe) from http://cygwin.com/snapshots/. You will need to backup your existing cygwin1.dll, bunzip2 the .bz2 file you download, copy the extracted cygwin1-xxx.dll file over your existing cygwin1.dll file.

3. Wait for the next revision of the 'cygwin' Base package (that could take a while).

--rodney

[Rodney]

Update: Good news!

The cygwin base package was updated to 1.5.25-12 on April 17 2008 and fixes the pipe problem that was causing the error when attempting to connect to a host via SFTP.

To get the fix simply update your Cygwin installation.

--rodney