I have recently updated my zonelabs firewall to the latest (free) spec (5.5.094.000) and since doing so have been unable to get an ftp connection working properly. I use Wise ftp and prior to the update there were no problems. The same settings seem to have been retained within zonealarm, but I keep getting timed out when connected to the website I am editing, and am unable to fully connect.
Zonealarm free version doesn't have much in the way of customising features, and I haven't been able to find anything obvious. Turning off zonealarm and switching the standard windows firewall back on gives the same problem, but turning everything off, and having no firewall (eek!) lets me connect and upload new pages etc.
Can anyone point me in the right direction?
I have very little knowledge of which diagnostic facilities may give me the answers, but have FreshDiagnose, Tweak XP and Startup Mechanic available to do some diagnosing.

According to ZoneAlarm the latest free version is 6.0.631.003 and there is an update here. Perhaps you should get that. The update you have may be buggy. It wouldn't be the first time an update fouled things up.

Another suggestion would be to disable ZA from running at startup and try another firewall like Kerio or Sygate (both are free) and see if that corrects the problem

Thank you for that. I have downloaded and installed the latest Zonelabs Firewall, but this makes no difference. Apart from the other Firewalls mentioned, any other ideas. I would like to stick to ZoneAlarm as so far it has proved to be quite reliable, and I know pretty much how to use it, so can do without more confusion.

As you say there are not a lot of options to play with in ZA. I found when using it I had to lower the default security setting to receive email when using Outlook Express. You may be able to lower the security setting in ZA and get a better response. Try using different levels of security and pinging the website you are trying to connect to. To do this open a command prompt by going to Start>Run and typing in cmd. Then type ping www.whatevertheurlis.com. If you were to ping Google the syntax would be:

ping www.google.com

Look at the Time and TTL responses.

Thanks again for the direction. I downloaded Sygate's Firewall, and my FTP connection worked fine using it. However, I found it a bit confusing with too much in it I didn't understand, so once over the initial problem, I did a fresh re-install of ZoneAlarm. I still couldn't FTP transfer, so tried adding the FTP IP addresses into the trusted zone.
Bingo - it all works fine now. After 2 weeks of frustration, a simple bloody solution!

Right on. Thanks for posting back and letting us know the solution. Your response will help others with the same problem when they search our site.