FileZilla and htaccess

So I was trying to update my htaccess file via FileZilla and for some strange reason it won't let me. I have done this a million times so I dont understand why now all of the sudden I cant do it. When I open the website with FileZilla and right click the htaccess file and click view/edit it will not even open the file and in the summary box or the area where FileZilla shows what is going on it says in red letters, "critical file transfer error". So I cannot even open the file to edit it. So to work around it I had to create a new htaccess file and then upload it to my website and delete the old one. While that works it is kind of a pain that will have to do that every time I need to update my htaccess file.

Anyone have any idea why all of the sudden I cant do this? I have copied and pasted the summary from FileZilla below to show what it is saying. What I have as bold is in red in FileZilla.

Command: PASV
Response: 227 Entering Passive Mode (xxx,xxx,xxx,xxx)
Command: RETR .htaccess
Response: 500 Unknown command.
Error: Critical file transfer error
Status: Disconnected from server

Thanks for any help!

Travis I removed the ip from your post.

That is strange, it sounds like something is protecting it in some way. Have you loaded any new plugins that maybe write to the htaccess file?

Rick
Universal4

Some security plugin perhaps? Protecting the htaccess file among other things?

I havent added any plugins to this site for a long time and I know I edited the file not to long ago. It is definitely weird. I kind of wondered if it was hacked at first but unfortunately I deleted the old htaccess file that was there so I cant look to see if the affiliate links were changed.

I did notice a folder that just appeared and it was a folder named www.nonumber.nl that I never noticed before. It says it is empty and when I looked at that url it is a website for Joomla extensions. I deleted it but the damage may have been done??

I am no expert with this but, as has been said, some security plugins like ithemes security will change the permissions of the .htaccess file to protect it. If you ftp to see the remote .htaccess file and right click on it then maybe you can "change permissions" so that it is writable.

This doesn't sound good. Be careful what will happen. Check for new folders and files daily. If new folders keeps coming, like you said, the damage may have been done already.

I'm not an expert in server security either. What I suggest you could do is to remove all default files and re-upload clean ones. You could do this for the main installation, plugins, theme...
If the database is infected it will be much harder to get rid of it.

You say that you have removed the .htaccess file. Were you able to upload a new one?

Good luck!