Actually, we have similar scripts to this. We have a threshold of so many errors before the script croaks. Basically, the script attempts to ftp to the file. If it fails, it calls a "redo" and keeps trying until there is success or the max number of failures is exceeded. Here are a couple of snippets from the code, to at least let you see how we do it.

sub get_files {
    # ftp files from remote server

    while (1) {
                $ftp = Net::FTP->new("$From_Host", Debug => 0);
                $ftp->login("$From_User","$From_Pass") || do { &print_
+ftp_error; redo; };
                $ftp->cwd("$From_Dir");
                (@dir_files = $ftp->dir) || do { &print_ftp_error; red
+o; };
                $ftp->quit;
                last;
    }

sub print_ftp_error {
    # Error handling proc

    $save = $ftp->error;
    $ftp->quit;

    print STDERR "ftp error: $save\n";
    print_to_log("ftp error: $save\n");

    if (++$ftp_errors{"$save"} >= $Max_ftp_Errors) {
                print STDERR "\n\nExceeded maximum number of ftp error
+s. Exiting!!!\n";
                print_to_log("\n\nExceeded maximum number of ftp error
+s. Exiting!!!\n");
                system("$Notify_Proc \"ftpfiles.pl Exceeded maximum nu
+mber of ftp errors. Please check $Log_File.\" 2>&1 > /dev/null");
                rename "$Log_File", "$Log_File.$year.$mon.$mday\_$hour
+.$min";
                exit 1;
    } else {
                #
                # Give the ftp server a 60 second grace period to get
                # it's act together.
                #
                sleep 60;
        }
}
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