Time Capsule: backup failed old backups lost

I'm having serious problems with my Time Capsule.
It is the newest Time Capsule 2TB connected to my new iMac and new installed MacOSLion.
This update already gives me problems with Wi-fi and now my Time Capsule is not working properly either.
I just left my iMac on for 3 days so it could make a backup.. after two days back-uping very slowly the message : back-up delayed appears, followed by the message : back-up failed. Al my previous back-ups made with my Time-Capsule are completly gone and I cannot back-up anything.
Had the problem several times, turning the TC on and of, reset it, reset Airport settings etc does NOT help. I'm having this problem for 2 months now.
Called Apple-Support about my Wi-fi problems, but 1,5 hour later and €30 poor they did not solve my problem. So, I lost faith in the Apple Support.
Any other suggestions for recovering previous back-ups and solving my constant and slow back-up failure problem?
Thanks in advance!

What does this mean
It means Time Machine is confused, and does not know what it is doing.
how do I fix it?
Try power off the Time Capsule
Count to ten
Then power the Time Capsule back on
Wait a few minutes and try a backup

Similar Messages

Time capsule and deleting old backups

Hi after performing a recent backup to an external drive I don't have much space left on the disk. It says that time capsule will delete old backups. Does this mean that any movies backed up in these early back ups will be deleted as I no longer have them on my MacBook due to the amount of space they take up?

Time Machine is not an archive, it is a rolling backup.
If you want to keep files permanently, you must not store them only in Time Machine. If you don't have space for the movies on your main drive, buy a drive to use as an archive, put those movies on it, and make sure that disk is backed up too, since if data exists in only one place it is vulnerable.
My family digital archive doesn't fit on my internal drive so it is on an external drive. I also maintain two exact backup copies of that external drive. One is in the fire safe at home, the other is in a safe deposit box, and those two backups are rotated periodically. If the original and the backup are lost due to fire, burglary, etc., the off-site backup means there is still a safe copy somewhere. Because I can't afford to lose those photos, movies, and financial records. Online backup is another option for making sure you won't ever lose data you need to keep.

How to connect my new MacBook Air to a LaCie hard disk with TIme Capsule backup from my old Imac? LaCie has USB 2.0, FireWire and eSata ports.

How can I connect my new MacBook Air to a LaCie hard disk with TIme Capsule backup from my old Imac? LaCie has USB 2.0, FireWire and eSata ports.

You can direct connect your MBA to the LaCie via USB 2 cable. If you have an Apple Airport Router you can USB connect the LaCie drive to the router and then use Airport Utility to configure it. Time Machine can access it either way.

My 2 TB Time Capsule's memory is full because it will not automatically delete old files as it is supposed to, so it is giving me zero backup of my two computers now. How can this be fixed so my Time Capsule deletes the old data and saves the new?

My 2 TB Time Capsule’s memory is full because it will notautomatically delete old files as it is supposed to, so it is giving me zerobackup of my two computers now. How can this be fixed so my Time Capsule deletes the old data and savesthe new?
Neither my local computer consultant nor I have been ableto change any of the settings in Time Machine to correct this problem. Working with the choices in the TimeMachine, there does not appear that there is any way to change the frequency ofthe backups either, so, after a year has elapsed, the time capsule is full, andmy only choice appears to be to erase all the current data on the Time Capsuleand start over, something that I do not want to at all let alone repeat on anannual basis. My questions are:
What can be done to have my Time Capsule delete old filesas it is supposed to do, so it has memory available to allow my computers toback up?
Is this a software problem that can be fixed online or isdoes this require a mechanical fix of defective hardware?

How much data is being backed-up from each Mac? (see what's shown for Estimated size of full backup under the exclusions box in Time Machine Prefs > Options).
Is there any other data on your Time Capsule, besides the backups?
Most likely, there just isn't room. Time Machine may be trying to do a very large (or full) backup of one or both Macs, and can't. Since it won't ever delete the most recent backup, there has to be enough room for one full backup plus whatever it's trying to back up now, plus 20% (for workspace).
Also see #C4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting for more details.

Time capsule erased my old backups?

I have two macbook airs.
On MBA1 I restored Lion from Mountain Lion, by going back before I installed the beta for Mountain Lion, and restoring.
Then, on MBA2 I deleted a bootcamp partition.
I then backed up both machines to Time Capsule.
All data is lost before the the new backups.
So all that meticulous, responsible backing up I've done is useless if I do a minor reconfig on my system and do another backup.
This is so laughably, abymsmally dysfunctional, I can't even have an emotional reaction to it. I am in a numb state of shock.
What happened? And why weren't there about a billion warnings, red flags, alarms and barking dogs telling be this was going to happen.
How can you possibly build a system that casually allows this to happen?

MichaelIsbell wrote:
How can you possibly build a system that casually allows this to happen?
Apparently you didn't notice -- this is a user-to-user forum; you're not talking to Apple here.
If you want to rant at Apple, go to an Apple Store, or call AppleCare, or file feedback here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/timemachine.html
Obviously, this is completely unacceptable. I am immediately terminating my use of Time Capsule. It simply doesn't work.
I'm sure Apple will be crushed. However, Time Machine, like other apps, does work just fine for most folks, most of the time.
if anyone can recommend a 100% reliable, deterministic backup system, be happy to hear about it.
There is no such thing. I've been programming computers for over 50 years, and have yet to find a perfect app (even the ones I wrote ) or hardware, any more than I've found a perfect automobile, calculator, etc.
At least some of the backups are probably still there; if you want help, and can drop the attitude, let us know.

New Macbook does not recognize Time Capsule backup from old macbook

I just purchased a late 2013 13" macbook pro. I have a mid 2009 macbook pro running Mavericks. The new macbook will not recognize the time capsule backup from my old macbook. I am trying to migrate all data over, but the new mac does not ever acknowledge the external drive that contains the backup. I've tried two different external drives with the same result each time. Both computers are running Mavericks.

Do you see the drive in Disk Utility?
If yes, run Repair Permissions then restart the drive.
1. Open Disk Utility in your Applications/Utility folder.
2. Click on the First Aid tab and select Repair Permissions
3. Click on the icon for your boot volume.
4. Click the repair permissions button.
In System Preferences > Time Machine can you select the old Time Machine with Select Disk?

Restoring an existing Time Capsule backup to a new HD

The hard drive on my 6 month old MacBook Pro failed inexplicably several days ago. After wasting half a day trying to repair the disk, I caved in and made an appointment at the dreaded "Genius" Bar.
They verified my suspicions; complete failure. They kept the laptop, ordered a new drive and two days later informed me it was fixed. I sat down and connected it to my Time Capsule with an ethernet cable. When I turned it on, it played through that now insufferable multicultural "welcome"-in-twenty-languages jam and I followed Apple's instructions +Restoring an existing Time Capsule backup to a new Mac+:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1177?viewlocale=en_US
My favorite step is #12: +Your Mac will check the Time Machine backup for a period of time.+ When that period was clearly going to be a while, I went on a run, came back 40 minutes later and...it had returned me to the initial post-willkommen-bienvenido-etc. screen where I get to choose a language. Okay, my bad for leaving it unattended. I started over at #2, and this time it only took about half an hour. It showed the folders on the Time Capsule, I selected all of them, and clicked Transfer.
Almost immediately, it dove back into the welcome song! Now, for the third time, I'm at step #12. It's been over half an hour, and still no sign of hope. Just the progress bar checking for backups.
Would they have installed Snow Leopard on my Leopard machine? I definitely told them what I had been running, but it seems like a plausible reason for the hang-ups.
Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks!

Amenity wrote:
Almost immediately, it dove back into the welcome song! Now, for the third time, I'm at step #12. It's been over half an hour, and still no sign of hope. Just the progress bar checking for backups.
Connect to your Time Capsule via Ethernet if at all possible.
After booting from your Leopard Install disc and selecting Utilities, select +Disk Utility+ and see if it can find the +sparse bundle+ containing your backups on your Time Capsule. You may have to join the network, etc., via the Airport icon in the menubar. If you can get the sparse bundle to appear in Disk Utility's sidebar, select it and do a +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on it.
Would they have installed Snow Leopard on my Leopard machine? I definitely told them what I had been running, but it seems like a plausible reason for the hang-ups.
That's fairly likely; it happens a lot, probably because most folks have upgraded and installing SL has become a habit. But it shouldn't matter -- as long as you're using your Leopard Install disc, it should work fine. Once the restore actually starts, the first thing that happens is your internal HD is erased, and everything is restored from your backups.
It's also possible that whatever was going wrong on your internal HD corrupted something critical in your installation of OSX, and the corrupted stuff was backed-up, and that's what's giving TM a problem. If nothing else seems to help, try restoring from a previous backup.

After installing Lion, Time Capsule backed-up my mac, but unfortunately it deleted all my old beck up!! I think it's terrible, what was the point than to have time capsule??now I lost all my back up with no warning....

Be crafull with updating to Lion.
I lost all my backup and my mac got realy slow...
Any suggestion if it is possible after all to recover my old back up from the time capsule? I guess it lost though.

Mount and open the internal disk of the Time Capsule. How many "sparsebundle" files do you see? If you only have one Mac using Time Machine but you see two such files, then one of them has your old data. In this case you may have missed a chance to continue using the old Time Machine file.
By the way, you've been misled by poor field labeling on this forum into typing a large part of your message into the field intended for the subject. In the future just type a short summary of your post into that field and type the whole message into the field below that.

I want to make a copy of my Time Capsule backups

Good day.
I have 2 directors with Macbook Pro's. They both back up via Time Machine to a Time Capsule.
Basically they wanted me to in a sense 'archive' a backup from time to time of the Time Capsule...the reason for this:
1. The time capsule automatically deletes old information when the drive gets full
2. They want a 'monthly' backup of the backups on the Time Capsule in case the capsule crashes tomorrow and one of the MAC the next day, they want to be able to get another capsule, copy the archive back and restore from it.
I know this seems very improbable but I am in South Africa and with the power / electricity issues we have here, I have seen my fair share of the weird and simply "whats the changes" scenarois to understand their concern.
All the posts I've come across all explain how to MOVE the time machine backups to a new destination - to create a new time capsule or time machine backup to a larger drive, etc etc. All I want to do is simply copy whatever is on the time capsule to another drive, but keep using the time capsule as per normal..kind of like a simple file copied backup of whatever is on the capsule.
Let me know if this is possible? My best guess would be to follow the process of changing the backup as per the posts I have come across to point to a new drive...let it copy, and then point the backup back to the original time capsule again.
My only fear is that its going to them do the copy process twice...which when 1Tb could be laboursome to say the least...especially to and from a time capsule on a 10/100 network!
Thanks!

My best guess would be to follow the process of changing the backup as per the posts I have come across to point to a new drive...let it copy, and then point the backup back to the original time capsule again.
My only fear is that its going to them do the copy process twice...which when 1Tb could be laboursome to say the least...especially to and from a time capsule on a 10/100 network!
Thanks!
Mountain Lion allows TM to backup to two different locations.. You can use the TC and a USB disk plugged into the TC.
It can then swap itself around or you can physically move disks around when you want to retain data.
Your guess.. of using the copy the backup to another location will also work.
Let me suggest it is no bad idea to backup.. a disk image with a different utility.. superduper does disk images only for free.. and you can do it from disk utility itself. A disk image can be far easier to recover from then TM which can be several hours and even then lots of stuff seems to need manual moving around.

Can't Connect to My Time Capsule Backups, Please Help!!!

I have been using Time Machine/Time Capsule to back my data up for over a year. I bought a new MacBook Pro this morning. I did not want to use Migration Assistant to transfer everything over because there were many bugs and corruptions on my old disk and was scared that would all be transferred to my new machine. It was time for a fresh start.
I set up my new computer and transferred most of the files I needed via a flash drive. I am now trying to set up my MacBook Pro to connect to my Time Capsule backup disk via Time Machine, but once I enter Time Machine it does not allow me to go "back in time" to see all of my previous backups and restore points. There are some really important files I am trying to get to, but this computer isnt connecting to the Time Capsule backups. The old computer has already been completely reformatted, but it is still able to access the Time Capsule backups.
I have done some internet research and learned that Time Machine uses a computer's ethernet MAC address to allow access. There are some codes posted on various websites that allow to alter what Time Machine thinks you MAC address is so that you can access your backups with a new computer/different logic board. None of these Terminal workarounds worked for me. The Genius Bar and Apple Care couldn't help either.
I am hoping somebody can help me out. I understand I can use my old computer to get into Time Machine and retrieve what I need then transfer those to the new machine. But there must be a way to allow a new computer to fully access Time Capsule backups, but curiously, I can't find it. I rather have my new computer have full access because I am selling the old laptop and so I wont be able to use it to access my backups any longer.
Sorry for the long explanation, but I hope that gives someone all the facts required to both understand what I am saying and help me fix the problem.
-Amir

Right now it is just empty because I have unmounted and disconnected my Time Capsule. I'm trying a low-tech work around to see if this works, but much rather do it the "right way."
What I am doing is this:
(1) Use Migration Assistant to copy everything from the Time Capsule to the new machine (this is exactly what I was trying to avoid initially). Migration Assistant has been copying files for about 5 hours now (still not sure what is going to happen).
(2) Create a full backup on Time Capsule with my MacBook Pro now that it has everything from the Time Capsule on it.
(3) Do a fresh install of Snow Leopard.
(4) Hopefully, have the fresh start on my machine I wanted, but still have access to at least one archived copy of my old computer and files/folders.
Does this make sense? Basically, the new machine does not allow me to access the old backups. So I am handicapping the machine now by reverting to my old settings via Migration Assistant, will back that up, then start all over from scratch again but hopefully have the peace of mind that my files are not gone because I will at least have that one copy of all my old copies in a Time Capsule backup that the new machine can access.

Is it possible to recover the contents of a "Sent Mail" folder that was accidentally deleted? We have complete Time Capsule backups.

We lost the contents of a "Sent Mail" folder when our ISP asked us to delete and re-create the account in an attempt to solve a connection problem.
Is there any way to re-create these messages from stuff in the Library or from a Time Capsule backup?
Thank you.

Yes.
Open the Sent folder in Mail.
Go to the menu bar and ask to Enter Time Machine.
Go back in time until you find the messages you want.
Restore them.
Of course I am assuming your backup disk is connected, or you have adequate local snapshots.
All the gory details here:
Restore items backed up with Time Machine
charlie

Cannot restore from Time Capsule backup wirelessly to Mountain Lion Retina

I just bought a new 15" MacBook Pro Retina Display and a Time Capsule router. The Time Capsule has supposedly backed up my macbook for a few days but when I try a complete restore from the Time Capsule backup wirelessly, it fails. New to Apple but do remember"can't access time capsule" even though network works fine.
Any help appreciated !!!

See p.4 here - http://www.pondini.org/TM/Time_Capsule.html - and see if the Great Pondoni can help.
He's sure helped others in the past...
Clinton

My time capsule backups are not visible

From the Time Machine system preferences window, when I click "Select Disk" the Data partition of the Time Capsule is visible and I'm able to select it and enter my password. The countdown to the Next Backup begins. When it gets to zero, it spins out with "Looking for backup disk," and displays the attached message. Yikes! Am I doomed, or can I some how get to my backups?

Paul Kirtley wrote:
I might mention, this all occurred after I ran a "Repair Disk Permissions" of my Macintosh HD. The process encountered no errors, but repaired a slew of Disk Permissions in the process. When Done, I was no longer able to access my Time Capsule backups.
That's interesting -- something had clearly gone wrong on your internal HD to mess up a lot of permissions.
(You might want to also reset the permissions on your home folder (Disk Utility only fixes permissions on system files and files installed by the OSX installer), per Resetting Password and/or User Permissions).
On the next backup, every file that had it's permissions repaired was treated as changed, and had to be backed-up again (Time Machine backs up the metadata, including permissions, as well as the data files). What then went wrong is anybody's guess, but something dire happened, or you wouldn't have gotten that message.
Does this shed any new light on my case, or am I faced with only one option...erase the backup disk?
Most likely, you've had a network or power problem, per the link Bob supplied.
There is one other option -- "archive" the damaged sparse bundle to a USB drive connected to the TC, per the green box in #Q6 of Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule. You can probably view and restore from them, via the Browse... option, per Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #17, but remember, they're damaged, so if you happen to hit a corrupted spot, anything may happen.
Then erase the TC's disk via Airport Utility, per the green box in #Q5 in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule, (but in this case, you might want to select the Zero-Out Data option. That will take longer than a quick erase, but if it fails, you'll know there's a problem with the TC's disk. If it succeeds, the disk may be ok.

HT4522 Time Capsule backups gone.

For reasons unknown, all of my Time Capsul backups (through Time Machine) prior to a certain date have disappeared. It may have been when I updated software in November. Suggestions as to how I can get those files back? They are not in Trash.

Unfortunately they may not be recoverable.. TM is not a long history recovery software.. and large changes can make it delete old backups.. Any file deleted on the computer will be deleted in the TM backup eventually.
See Q14-17 in pondini for various methods to try and recover files from TM.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

My Time Capsule backups disappeared (blank black screens) and in trying to set it up again I now find that when TC is plugged in and on (green light) it cancels out wifi reception from my router. I am only using TC as a backup not for wifi. Help!

My Time Capsule backups disappeared (blank black screens) and in trying to set it up again I now find that when TC is plugged in and on (green light) it cancels out wifi reception from my router. I am only using TC as a backup not for wifi. Can anybody help?

Sorry, you have lost me since it appears that you have two completely separate issues here.
All that I can suggest is you start over and try to set up the Time Capsule again first...and then, once that is done and the Time Capsule is working correctly on the network....then, try to troubleshoot the separate Time Machine issue.
If you decide that you want to do this, we'll need some basic information:
Make and model number of your modem?
You are using OS X Mavericks (10.9.3), correct?

Use external drive for Time Capsule backups AND file storage?

I have an external drive formatted by my MBP. I'm using it to store my iTunes music library and iPhoto pics. Can I use the drive for Time Capsule backups as well?

Yes, but that is not recommended. Storage and backup should be kept separate to reduce the chances of a disk failure. This is especially important because you cannot even partition a Time Capsule drive. Go get a separate drive for your storage needs. Get another drive for a second backup and use a different method of backup than Time Machine

Time Capsule: backup failed old backups lost

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