FTP: 530-User cannot log in, home directory inaccessible. Error and solution.

Issue

I have seen situations where customers use FTP with the "User name physical directory (enable global virtual directories)" option for FTP User Isolation and receive the "530-User cannot log in, home directory inaccessible" error. However, when they switch to the "FTP root directory" option for FTP isolation, it works without issues.

Solution

The FTP User Isolation option "User name physical directory (enable global virtual directories)" enable each user has their own physical directory, and global virtual directories are enabled, allowing users to access shared resources.

You need to create a folder within FTP root directory  with the user name. For example if your FTP root directory is C:\FTP and user is testFTP. You need to create a folder LocalUser within FTP root directory "C:\FTP\LocalUser". And you need to create another folder withing the newly create LocalUser folder with the same as user name. In this case "testFTP" since the target user name is "testFTP". The complete path will look like

C:\FTP\LocalUser\testFTP

After this if you are still getting the same issue restart the FTP service using the below command.

net stop ftpsvc && net start ftpsvc

After restarting, the issue should be resolved. This is one potential scenario. If you encounter an error like "File system returned an error," it's likely due to the directory either not existing or lacking the necessary permissions.

If you continue to receive the "FTP 530 User cannot log in" error, please refer to this article for further details.  - FTP “530 User cannot log in” error and solution (microsoft.com).

If you are looking for more help in FTP User Isolation follow this article- Configuring FTP User Isolation in IIS 7 | Microsoft Learn