Solving vsftpd's unsupported record version unknown 48.48 error

I use FTPS with vsftpd to update my WordPress plugins. This means that the wordpress files don’t need to be writeable by the webserver user, which adds another layer of protection and separation. I make FTPS available to localhost only, and force SSL encryption end-to-end.

This makes debugging a bit of a PITA though. The simplest way to debug is to REMOVE all that extra security, and allow unencrypted connections from a trusted host, using an FTP GUI (Cyber Duck, in my case), and see any error logs.

In my case, once I stripped away all the encryption, instead of the unsupported record version unknown 48.48 error, I got a succinct error telling me that a chroot was not supported in a directory where my user had write access. Simple fix, turn the encryption back on, and I’m away!