Troubleshooting NAB Direct Link connection failure and timeout errors

If you’re receiving a connection failed error or time out error on your SFTP client, such as ‘Connection error, unable to connect to server’ or ‘Network error, connection to URL timed out’, check the following:

• Look for recent outage communications from NAB in your email mailbox. There may be an outage in progress.
• Review your SFTP connection to ensure the correct URL and Port Number is being used. Refer to the NAB Direct Link Setup Guide. Please contact your NAB business banker representative if you require this to be reissued.
• Check your SFTP client technical logs for errors or messages. If your software provides a reason for the connection failure, follow the instructions.
• If applicable, engage your network and firewall team to check the NAB Direct Link URL and Port Number has been allowlisted.
• Check your SFTP client and clear the existing cache as per your system instruction.
• Depending on your SFTP software, either run a test connection or Telnet to the NAB Direct Link URL.

Run a simple Telnet query to check whether the connection issue is coming from your system or from NAB’s side.

To do this:

1. Check if Telnet is installed on your Windows or Linux environment.
2. Open the command line tool or PowerShell.
3. Run the Telnet query: <host name> <port number>

Telnet query responses

Still need help?

If the above steps didn’t enable you to connect to NAB Direct Link, please email direct.link.support@nab.com.au and supply the following details:

• Mailbox ID
• Date and time the connection was lost 
• IP address of connection
• Screenshots of error messages received
• Connection log files which display errors.