David Krider wrote:

What's the deal? This has been going on for weeks. I use lftp, which was just updated, but I've tried the update, and it still does the same thing. To wit: it always hangs trying to get the i686 directory. I'm getting this behavior at home and at work (with two completely different internet connections and firewall setups, which, I hope, removes that from the equation). Is anyone else seeing this nonsense?

No, WORKSFORME. Check if you can access the URLs directly with a ftp client or a browser. Check the proxy settings.