Originally Posted by BigFurry

Are you monitoring every port with tcpdump, or only the initial connection?

Sounds like your side and the server side cannot create the second connection, the data channel. This is a second connection between the two IPs, usually created when you list a directory's contents or transfer a file. ACTIVE mode / PASSIVE mode decides how this second connection is created. Usually one of them works, if not, router/firewall somewhere in between or server-side is still the most likely cause. (As you already ruled out your PC by trying two different ones.)

As I recall/read:
- If you're using ACTIVE mode, the server would be trying to connect to your PC to establish the 2nd connection. If a firewall or router blocks it inbetween, you wouldn't see anything in tcpdump, as it doesn't reach your computer.
- In PASSIVE mode, you'd see your computer trying to establish an outgoing connection on a different port.

Does it really hang right after the password is sent? Isn't it the 'ls' FTP command that makes it hang?
It would be useful to see the 'ftp' command log with debug on and verbose on.