Fix upload errors

A submission that shows as "Failed" did not reach your upload destination. In most cases the files are still there and a retry delivers them, so a failed submission is usually a few minutes of work rather than a lost upload. This page covers how to find the failure, read what caused it, fix the cause, and retry. Everything on this page is available on all plans.

Find the submissions that failed

Every upload form keeps its own record on the Submissions tab, and the "Status" column there shows how far each submission got on its way to your upload destination.

1. On the Upload Forms page, click View Submissions on the form's row.
2. Look down the "Status" column. A submission that did not arrive shows "Failed" in red.
3. On a form with a long history, click Sort and sort by Status to group the failures together.

What each status means

The "Status" column describes how far a submission got on its way to your upload destination.

• "Completed" means every file reached your upload destination.
• "Pending" means the submission has been created and the files have not started transferring yet.
• "Transferring" means the files are on their way.
• "Failed" means the transfer did not succeed.
• "Incomplete" means files were expected but none arrived, usually because the uploader closed their browser or lost their connection before the upload finished. Nothing was delivered, so ask them to submit again.
• "Partial" means some of the files in the submission were not uploaded. Only a small number of older submissions carry this status.

Read what went wrong

Click the chevron at the left of a failed submission to expand it. A red banner sits at the top of the expanded row, headed "File couldn't be delivered", or naming the number of files where more than one failed. Beneath the heading it reads "The destination rejected the upload. Try again, or fix the issue and retry."

Click Technical details in that banner to see the exact reason recorded for the transfer. That line tells you which fix below applies, so read it before retrying.

Retry a failed transfer

There are two controls and they do the same thing.

• Click Retry in the red banner on the expanded submission.
• Or click the three-dot menu at the right of the submission's row and click Retry Transfer.

The submission moves back to "Transferring" and a "Transfer restarted" message appears. If the cause is still there it fails again with a new reason, so work out the cause first wherever the reason gives you something to act on.

Retrying needs edit access to the form. A teammate with view access can see the control but gets an error when they use it. See Set form permissions.

A retry does not count against your team's monthly upload allowance a second time. See How bandwidth works.

What EZ File Drop retries on its own

A transfer that fails for a reason that might clear by itself is retried automatically, five more times, before it is left for you. The gaps between attempts grow: one minute, then five minutes, then fifteen minutes, then an hour, then six hours. A destination that was briefly unreachable usually clears in the first attempt or two without you doing anything.

Two kinds of failure are never retried automatically, because repeating them cannot help. A cloud account that needs reconnecting is one. A destination folder that has been moved, renamed, or deleted is the other. Both go to "Failed" immediately and wait for you.

You get an email when a delivery fails

Notify on transfer failure is on by default on every form, and it emails you once a submission has failed for good, whether it failed immediately or after all five automatic attempts. The subject begins "Action needed:" and names the upload destination.

The form owner is always emailed. Add anyone else in the To row of that notification, on the form's Notifications tab. One email is sent per failure rather than one per attempt, and a submission that fails again after a retry sends a new one. See Set up email notifications.

A transfer that appears stuck

A submission that has been "Transferring" for more than fifteen minutes is flagged in its expanded row as "Transfer appears stuck", with a Retry Transfer button beside it. Click it to start the delivery again.

Match the reason to the fix

These are the reasons the failure banner gives, and what each one means.

• "Missing permission to upload to this destination" and "No permission to upload to this destination" mean the connection no longer has the access it needs. Reconnect the cloud account.
• "Destination storage limit reached" means the cloud account you are delivering to has no space left. Free some up, or point the form at a different account.
• "A file with this name already exists in the destination" means the provider refused a duplicate name. Renaming incoming files with a form field value keeps names unique. See Rename incoming files.
• "File exceeds the destination's size limit" means the file is larger than your cloud provider accepts for a single file. That ceiling belongs to the provider, not to EZ File Drop.
• "Upload blocked by destination policy" means a rule on the destination account refused the file, which on a work account usually means an administrator setting.
• A message about a rate limit means the provider was handling too many requests at once. Retry it, and it usually goes through.
• "Transfer failed", "Upload timed out", "Network error during upload", and "File was not delivered to the destination" are general failures with no single cause. Retry first, and if it fails the same way twice, send it to support.

Reconnect a cloud account

Most failures that will not clear on their own come back to the connection. A cloud account can stop working because its access was revoked at the provider, because a password change ended it, or because the account was removed.

1. In the left sidebar, click Cloud Connections.
2. Find the connection that needs attention. In place of the usual green check it offers Reconnect.
3. Click Reconnect and sign in to the provider again.

Reconnecting retries the submissions that failed on that account automatically. You do not have to go back and retry them one at a time.

FTP and SFTP connections work differently, because they hold the server details you entered rather than a sign in with a provider. The menu item on those reads Edit, and you correct the address, user name, or password in the dialog it opens.

EZ File Drop also emails you about a connection that has been failing, so a form that has quietly stopped delivering does not go unnoticed.

Check the form's upload destination

A folder that has been moved, renamed, or deleted in your cloud storage cannot receive files, and the transfer fails without being retried. Set the destination again on the form, then retry the failed submissions.

1. On the Upload Forms page, open the form.
2. On the form canvas, click the File Upload field. The left panel switches to Field Options.
3. Check the folder shown under UPLOAD DESTINATION, and choose it again if it is missing.
4. Click Publish changes.

A form with more than one File Upload field has a destination for each one, so check them all.

How long you have to retry

EZ File Drop does not keep your files. A file that has been delivered is removed about an hour after your cloud storage confirms it arrived, and any file is removed after 30 days whether it was delivered or not.

Those 30 days are your window. While the files are still there, a retry can deliver them. Once they are gone, retrying cannot bring them back and the person who uploaded has to submit again.

EZ File Drop emails you seven days before that happens, with a subject that begins "Action needed:" and names the form. That email is your last chance to act on the submission.

From that same point, a recovery panel headed "Recover files" appears on the expanded submission, so you can download the files by hand and put them where they belong yourself. It shows for the person who owns the cloud connection the form delivers to, and only after a retry has already been tried at least once.

When an uploader says the upload did not work

An upload that never reached EZ File Drop is a different problem from a delivery that failed, and it does not appear on the Submissions tab as a failure. Ask the person what they saw.

• "Could not connect to the upload server. Please check your internet connection and try again." means the upload did not get through from their browser. Ask them to try again on a stable connection.
• A message naming file types, a file size, or a number of files means one of the form's own restrictions turned the file away before it was sent. See Restrict file types and set upload limits.
• A message saying the form is not accepting submissions is not an error. The form is either in Draft or outside a schedule you set. See Form statuses and Schedule a form to open and close.

On a free trial there is one more possibility. A trial has a hard upload allowance, and once it is used up, anyone opening one of that team's forms sees "This form's account has reached its trial bandwidth limit. The owner needs to upgrade to a paid plan before more files can be uploaded." Choosing a plan lifts the block. Forms on a paid plan are never blocked this way. See How bandwidth works.

Send a submission to support

1. Click the three-dot menu on the submission's row.
2. Click Get help with this submission.
3. The "Contact support" window opens with that submission's ID, its date, and the form's name already filled in. Describe what happened in the Message box.
4. Click Send message.

Sending it this way saves you gathering the details, and it identifies the exact transfer to look at.

Behavior notes

• A failed submission still counts toward your team's monthly upload allowance, because the files were uploaded. A retry does not count a second time.
• A failed submission also counts toward a form's submission limit, where one is set. See Restrict file types and set upload limits.
• Files already delivered to your cloud storage are never affected by a failure on a later submission. Each submission is delivered on its own.
• Files delivered to an FTP or SFTP server show as plain text on the Submissions tab rather than as links, because there is no web address to open. That is normal and not a sign of a failure.
• A form on the Starter plan delivers exactly the same way as one on the Business and Premium plans, and retries the same way. Nothing on this page is plan-gated.