Again for reference: http://forum.filezilla-project.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7980

Sorry if my previous comment seemed a bit strident, but I can’t stand when folks assume someone didn’t read their instructions carefully enough. Chris is right, n00bs (and even seasoned developers) have trouble with this setting.

Just FYI, your response to Chris was kind of flippant, and also presumptive and not necessarily correct for all of us. Some of us aren’t uploading files to or downloading files from a hosting provider. In my case, I’m sending files to and receiving files from a telecommunication vendor who is helping me troubleshoot an issue at work.

According to the Filezilla forums, you apparently need to provide a value in the Default Remote Directory field that starts with a / character, in most cases. I’m uploading to a Unix-like (probably Linux) system, and I figured I could use ~/foo instead of /some/absolute/path/foo, but that apparently will not work.

Please see the following on the Filezilla forums:

http://forum.filezilla-project.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7980

That is just because you did not read the instructions. The Default remote Directory box was intentionally left blank in the example. With some hosting companies, you already are in the default directory when you connect via FTP. You therefore do not need to enter anything. The important part is, “The information you received from your hosting company when you set up the account should explain this.”

If your FTP login places you above the root directory, you will probably see a directory named html
or public_html listed. Sometimes it is called wwwroot. If you see one of these directory names, that is the root directory name that needs to be placed in the Default Remote Directory box.

We cannot predict the name of the root directory because that varies depending upon how your hosting company configured the server. ALWAYS check with your hosting company if you are not sure.

Eg. I put in public_html into that box and I get “default remote path” cannot be parsed.
I tried various permutations but still nothing.