Hi:
With regard to that very same error message, this Tech Support note explains that:
You can use the FTP access method on a FILENAME statement with SAS/GRAPH
device drivers as long as the FILENAME statement references a specific
file (as opposed to a directory location). If you attempt to use the
FTP access method on a FILENAME statement that refers to a directory
location, the following error messages will appear in the SAS Log:
Invalid reply received for the STOR command.
Unable to open graphics device.
Unable to initialize graphics device.
From:
http://support.sas.com/kb/1/632.html
Even though your program is not using SAS/GRAPH, you -are- attempting to write to a directory and not to a specific file. You might wish to open a track with Tech Support to determine whether this note is relevant to your issue with FTP filename engine.
Also, this note:
http://support.sas.com/kb/4/470.html
explains that:
When you use the FTP device type with Universal Printing, you may
receive the following error message:
Error: Invalid Reply received for the STOR command...
The reason is that FTP needs write access to a pre-existing file on
the FTP server.
Again, even though this second note was specific to Universal Printing, I sense a "theme" in the use of the FTP filename engine: it might be "happier" if you pointed to a named file. To me, this makes sense. Normally, when I take SAS out of the picture and just use FTP utilities, I am working at the FILE level to FTP back and forth. So I would expect that you can't just FTP a whole directory from within a SAS program -- you'd either have to FTP one file at a time into the directory or use some other kind of process to FTP the contents of an entire directory.
Since these 2 notes do not mention DATA _NULL_ specifically, you might wish to work with Tech Support on this issue. Or, post your entire LOG, as Scott suggests to give folks the most information to attempt to help you.
cynthia