Time Machine Can't Connect (anymore)

Time machine has decided that it can't connect to the backup volume located on the time capsule. I can see the drive fine, there is significant traffic when I attempt to access time machine, but it just spins it's wheels trying to connect to the backup volume. Once, it was actually nice enough to tell me it couldn't find it, now it just spins and spins and spins...

Good evening Mr. Conceptualpete. I saw your message on Apple's blog. I have exactly the same problem you are having with Time Capsule. Did you find a solution?
Time cannot be seen by Airport Utility software.
Please let me know, do you have any solution?
Thank you very much,
Davide

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Time Machine can't connect/use shared network volume

Hi All,
I have a Mobius2 external USB hard drive connected to my iMac (10.9.5). It has two partitions (Disk Utility 13 does not seem to allow more that 2 partitions now), one partition is for Time Machine backups of my iMac. The 2nd partition (as required by Time Machine is a shared AFP volume). I want to backup my MacBook (10.9.5) but I can't get Time Machine to use the partition I set up for it on the Mobius2. Even though I have the volume (named "Mobius RAID 2") mounted on my MacBook desktop, and I added it to Time Machine (entering both the password to connect to the iMac the Mobius is connected to and the password to encrypt the backup with) I still keep getting the error below!
"Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “Jeffrey’s iMac”.
The network backup disk could not be accessed because there was a problem with the network username or password. You may need to re-select the backup disk and enter the correct username and password."
I have removed the shared volume several times from Time Machine and added it back....still get the same error above, even when the volume is already mounted to my MacBooks desktop! I don't know what else to try. I used to Keychain to verify the log in password is correct and it is.
....I can even copy files to the (2nd) partition on the Mobius2 (connected to my iMac) when the volume is mounted on the MacBooks desktop.
So I don't know why Time Machine keeps saying the "networked backup disk couldn't be accessed". Can anyone help? (see attached screen shots)
Jeff
Screen Shots:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/22p4f7uu5x8suoh/AABfX-t8_sW7IVSmjgVT7jB4a?dl=0

Hi Eric,
I was able to change the permissions for "everyone" on the iMac for the connected USB drive partition. But not on the MacBook when this partition is mounted on the MacBook desktop. I get this error saying I don't have the necessary permission to change it from "No Access" to "Read & Write":
https://www.dropbox.com/s/aq3zme6ew7oatgg/MobiusTMbackup6.tiff?dl=0
I don't even understand why it says "No Access" for "everyone" when I gave "everyone" Read & Write privileges on the iMac for this drive/partition!
You said "Apple officially only supports Time Capsules as NAS backups." but on the page you sent me it says:
"You can use Time Machine with a Time Capsule, and with USB, FireWire, and Thunderbolt disks. The backup disk can be directly connected to your computer or be on a network. If the backup disk has been divided into partitions, you can use one of the partitions."
....."directly connected to your computer or be on a network" = NAS? If that's what it means Apple needs to be more clear, as my USB drive and its' partitions ARE on a my network, and I can put files on them and access them across my network.
I am trying to get a 2nd network Time Machine backup going as the Time Machine backup of my MacBook became corrupted and I could not restore my mail, even though my mail files were in there, I could restore files but I could not access my mail directory no matter what I tried, Apple has some kind of lock on it now and hides it. I had to resort to my BackBlaze backup to restore my mail, luckily BackBlaze does not hide the mail directory.
So it seems I have a $3000 iMac with a RAID 1 drive (with two brand new 4TB HGST drives) connected to it (that I bought just to improve my backups) and Time Machine and the vaunted "OS X" ("the world’s most advanced desktop operating system") can't handle it. Great.
But I do appreciate your help Eric...
Come on Apple, FIX THIS.
Jeff

Time machine can't connect to external HD

Hi,
Quick summary:
I have a partitioned external HD (Lacie Network Space 2, 1Gb) running both a Time Machine partition and a regular external HD partition
Some time ago my iMac broke down and I decided to do a clean install
I (somehow, can't remember how) accessed the files I wanted from the external HD and moved them to the computer and then I put the HD away and stopped using the Time Machine functionality
I left some of my iPhoto library on the Time Machine, I haven't needed them for ages, but now I do, which bring me to my current situation:
I can't access my Time Machine partition on the HD. I can access the the normal external HD partition just fine. I've tried both over wifi and having the HD directly hooked to the computer. I just doesn't connect, it doesn't even allow me to press "connect as". I have update a couple times between now and then so maybe it has something to do with the OS version?
Basically all I want to do is to access the files within the Time Machine Partition, and format the whole HD and use it as a normal network HD.
Currently I have OsX 10.9.5.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!

An update:
I am able to access the Time Machine partition through the Lacie browser based dashboard, I can go through contents folder for folder. But it is incredibly slow and the way I remember Time Machine folder structure being it would take forever to extract all my pictures. Let alone go through if there's something else I might want to keep before I format.
Anyway, this would seem to confirm the problem is with OS X?

Time Machine can not connect to NAS

Hi
I want some help,because I buy the thecus NAS,I Use the time Machine connect to NAS,when I first connect NAS Machine,the Host and IP is response
but when I click the Host,the stop symbol is display,so I can not do any thing for the backup,please give me any commit(ps. the MAC OS is 10.6.6 ,NAS is use the netatalk AFP) ,but use QNAP and synology NAS have same question
Oscar

Some NAS devices are compatible with Time Machine, some aren't. Even with the ones that are compatible now, there are some downsides to the combination.
See the pink box in #2 of Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

Time Machine can't backup anymore, 1,1TB still available.

Since 10.9.2, my Time Machine have stopped doing backups. I can't connect to the hard drive even with the right password.
All I get is: Connecting to "Time Capsule"...
Any ideas why this is?

Because Mavericks is lousy OS.
Reset the TC to factory and start over.. use all SMB names.. that means short, no spaces and pure alphanumeric.
Universal Factory Reset.. any model TC or AE.
Unplug your TC/AE from power or turn off at the power point.
Hold in reset. and power the TC/AE back on.. all without releasing reset and keep holding in for about 10sec. (this is often difficult without a 2nd person or a 3rd arm).
Release it when the status light flashes rapidly. If it doesn’t flash rapidly you have missed it and try again.
Note..
Be Gentle! Feel the switch click on. It has a positive feel.. add no more pressure after that.
TC/AE will reboot after a couple of minutes with default factory settings and will wipe out previous configurations of the router.
No files are deleted on the hard disk in a TC.. No reset of the TC deletes files.. to do that you use erase from the airport utility.
Then manually mount the disk.. in Finder, Go, Connect to server. Type in
AFP://TCname.local (you will need the whole thing including domain which is local by default).
It should then ask for a password to connect.. just type in what you made it or public which is the default.
Reset TM
A4
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
and it should then be able to continue backups once it sees the disk.

Time Machine can not connect to Time Capsule

The problem is Time Machine sees the time capsule, then when I put my password in, nothing. This is driving me nuts...

Help! I have the same issue, and renaming the disk is not helping. I renamed it to "TCDisk" (without the quotes of course) and it still does not work. Same problem occurs. The disk is renamed in Time Machine Preferences, but I still cannot select it. I enter my password once, and it turns TM off, and I enter it again and the slider stays "on" but the disk is not selected, and the "choose disk" option is still available. Also, the other computers on my network can select the drive as their Time Machine backup location. Only mine is not able to. I configured the TC through my machine, if that makes a difference. Do I need to change some other settings or what? Please help me out. Thanks a lot in advance.

Time Machine Can't find Drive connected to other networked Mac

I have a Drobo external drive array connected by firewire to my primary home computer - a Mac Pro.
For the last year I've backed up two Macbook Pros (mine and my wife's) to this Drobo using Time Machine (The Mac Pro is always on and the laptops backup through the home network, through the Map Pro, to the Drobo).
I recently did a fresh reinstall of Lion to all 3 computers. Now for some reason Time Machine can't kick the backup off. It gives me a "Can't backup - the backup drive us not available," or something like that.
A couple of key points:
* Through the primary computer, I have opened read/write file sharing permissions for all drives, including the FW connected Drobo
* From the laptops, I can see and read/write to the Drobo through Finder
* Through Time Machine preferences, I can select the Drobo as a backup destination - it's only when I kick off the backup that I run into the error.
* If I create a test admin account to try, I get the same problem when trying to back up.
* As a safegard, I have run a manual backup successfully to a separate external drive (mobile g-drive)
What am I missing? Seems like it's gotta be something straightforward - perhaps on the laptop?
Thank you,
-bh-

no - sadly not:)
Okay - I gave it a shot - no dice - here's a screenshot -
Couple of interesting things (at least to me and my limited knowledge...):
* the reset of Time Machine seemed to reset how my laptop connected to the primary computer - defaulted to connecting through AppleID rather than Administrator
* Perhaps I'm using wrong Admin credentials in my File Sharing preferences?
* When I connect to the main Mac Pro ("connect as...") with Admin credentials...though I see the drives and can read/write, it still shows a "connection failed" message above. sending one other screenshot to show you.
Thanks for all your help,
-bh-

Time machine can't find wireless device despite strong Wifi connection

Every time I try to set up time machine, whenever it tries to find a wireless device it says "Airport Utility was unable to find any Airport wireless devices. Make sure the Airport wireless device you want to set up is plugged in and in range of your computer, and then rescan again." I already have a perfectly strong connection to my router so why does it keep saying that it can't find a wireless connection?

Bernard778 wrote:
I have the very same problem. MB recognizes my 2TB Verbatim when connected directly via USB and Time Machine goes to work. When I connect the HDD to my router, my MB sees the HDD in Finder, but Time Machine can't find it ("Airport Utility was unable to find any Airport wireless devices. Make sure the Airport wireless device you want to set up is plugged in and in range of your computer, and then rescan again.").
@Pondini - this is not a time capsule, I have a HDD on my WiFi network.
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
You have two problems with this setup.
First, Apple doesn't support backing-up that way. See this Apple article: [Disks that can be used with Time Machine|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html].
Second, backups done locally (when the HD is connected to your Mac via USB) are placed in a Backups.backupdb folder at the top level of the drive. When they're done over a network (Ethernet or WIFI), that folder is inside a +sparse bundle,+ and you can't easily switch between the two.

HT201250 I disconnected My Passport by mistake, and now Time Machine can not find it. Although connected, it does not appear in the My Devices section of Finder. What do I do?

I disconnected My Passport by mistake, and now Time Machine can not recognise it. It no longer appears in the My Devices section of Finder. What do I do?

Hello rjhc49,
Thank you for the details of the issue you are experiencing with your external hard drive. I found an article with steps you can take when an external device is not being recognized.
I recommend following the steps in the section titled "Top troubleshooting tips" in the following article:
USB and FireWire Quick Assist
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1151
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

Time machine does not backup anymore

Hello all,
I've been using my time machine for a month now, I kept it turned off and only connected the disk when I wanted to make a backup. Then I just hit Back Up Now from the menu and it always backed up everything (I used to check it afterwards). FYI, I've got a 500GB drive and for backups I use a 500GB partition on an external disk, where about 100GB is still free. All of a sudden, my time machine does not backup anymore. It does its run, whether a scheduled hourly one when turned on, or an on-demand one, but it only lasts a split second as though there is nothing to backup and when I enter the time machine, the files are really missing. I can't make it backup anything anymore. What is going on?
thanks everyone

cukerko wrote:
Hello all,
I've been using my time machine for a month now, I kept it turned off and only connected the disk when I wanted to make a backup. Then I just hit Back Up Now from the menu and it always backed up everything (I used to check it afterwards). FYI, I've got a 500GB drive and for backups I use a 500GB partition on an external disk, where about 100GB is still free.
It's not related to this problem, but that may not be large enough. What's important is not the size of your internal HD, but how much is on it (or is expected to be on it in the next year or so). It varies widely, of course, depending on how you use your Mac, but Time Machine usually needs 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing-up.
. . . it only lasts a split second as though there is nothing to backup and when I enter the time machine, the files are really missing.
That sounds like the year-old unfixed bug detailed in red in #D5 of [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

I upgraded to Maverick and now Time Machine will not connect to the external hard drive to back up files. The external hard drive is a Western Digital "My Book Live" 2 TB. How do I solve problem?

I upgraded to Maverick and now Time Machine will not connect to the external hard drive to back up files. The external hard drive is a Western Digital "My Book Live" 2 TB. How do I solve problem?

I also had problem accessing my WD MyBookLive after upgrading to Maverick.
To resolve the problem, I used Connect To Server (Cmd K) to specify the IP address.
Then I enter a user id and password I created in the MyBookLive.
You can also verify that you have admin access to the MyBookLive using Safari or Chrome.
Just enter the MyBookLive IP address as the URL.

Back up with time machine can't finish, because volume with sparse bundle already seems to be in use

I have problems with time machine. The message I got (in Dutch) is "Het schijfkopiebestand '/Volumes/Back up schijf/iMac van Gerard.sparsebundle' dat voor de reservekopie wordt gebruikt, is al in gebruik." The sparsebundle seems to be in use so Time machine can't finsh back up process. Any idea what I should do to fix this? I'm using time machine over a wireless netwerk, backing up on a NAS form Lacie, connected to the netwerk via airport extreme. Ik normally works well.
regards,
Gerard

http://pondini.org/TM/C12.html

Time Machine Can Be Made to work with a Network Share

FYI I am just posting this here for the benefit of the community. The source of this info is: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=375047
As I write this, I am doing a Time Machine backup to a ReadyNAS NV+ afp mounted share. Here is a summary of what the thread above says you need to do. It worked for me.
Take any supported USB standalone drive and plug it in to an available USB port.
Use Disk Utility to format the drive (or partition on the drive) and name that partition to whatever you want your network share to be called. In my case, I called it "office-tm".
After you do this, open the Time Machine preference panel and select that new drive (in my case "office-tm") to be the Time Machine backup drive.
After Time Machine sets up the drive, it will start counting down before the next backup. Press the little X on the right side to cancel the backup.
Now open a terminal session and change directories to /Volumes/<drive> where in my case <drive> was office-tm (cd /Volumes/office-tm).
When you do a ls -a -l, you will see two important files. One starts with a period (.) and contains numbers after it. The other one is called .com.apple.timemachine.supported.
What you need to do is copy these two files to your network share. The trick is that you want your network share to have the same name as this drive you just prepared (again, in my case it was called office-tm). I first created a new share on my ReadyNAS+ called office-tm and set the quotas properly.
Then you need to copy the files. There are several ways to do this but the way I did it was that I temporarily mounted the network share at a different mount point in terminal just to get the files over. So for example, I did:
sudo mount -t afp afp://<ip.addr.of.share>/office-tm /Volumes/office-tm2
Then I copied the two files over (substitute your appropriate volume names):
cp /Volumes/office-tm/.00whateveryourfilenameis /Volumes/office-tm2/.
cp /Volumes/office-tm/.com.apple.timemachine.supported /Volumes/office-tm2/.
Turn off Time Machine so you can unmount.
Now you can unmount both the USB drive and the network share and then you remount the network share as the proper name. The same one that the USB drive was named so as far as Time Machine is concerned, the volume is still there. The two files are on the network share so all is fine and Time Machine can find the volume it expects.
Wait for Time Machine to start it's hourly backup and away you go.
PLEASE NOTE THIS DISCLAIMER - There is probably a good reason why Apple disabled this feature so you might want to think carefully before you rely on this hack published in the MacRumors forum to back up your Mac. I am using this for testing purposes only and I am still using traditional backup techniques for my "real" backup of my office machine. If you don't get good Time Machine backups and you have relied upon them for critical data, don't blame anyone but yourself.

Name: RAIDiator
Version: 3.01c1-p6
Date: Tue Dec 12 17:46:22 2006
Size: 46566912 bytes
Reason: Final 6.
We should probably start a new topic in networking on this. I am seeing some strangeness with afp shares as well.
I have most shares set up to allow access by both CIFS/SMB and AFP. If I use Sidebar and try to access the shares by AFP, it says it can't connect to the server. But the same shares via CIFS works fine. (I can click on the "Windows" server icon and connect.) But for any of these shares, I can manually connect with the normal Go > Connect to Server... method, specifying afp://<ip address> and that works fine.
In the case of the Time Machine share that is the subject of this post, I disabled CIFS and am only using AFP because I wanted to make sure I connected to the share only via AFP for Time Machine purposes.
BTW, I do not use USER or DOMAIN security mode in my case and my shares are set up as SHARE security mode.

Time machine can not access time capsule after upgrade from snow leopard to mountain lion

Two days ago I upgraded my 2009 17" MBP from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion. That evening my time capsule/time machine combination worked fine and did an incremental backup of about 12 gigabyte. Yesterday - only one day later - the time machine backup did not work anymore.
It appears that the system can not find the time capsule - even though it shows the remaining free space on the time capsule (so it did find it after all).
The message is always the same:
Time Machine can not complete the backup "Time Capsule"
The image of the backup volume "/Volumes/Data/Pauls MacBookPro.sparsebundle" is not accessable (Error -1).
I also can not delete the backup image on the time capsule since it is read-only. And I do not want to format the time caspsule yet since my wife's MBAir is also using the same time casule.
I tried out all kinds of suggestions (hard and soft resetting both the MBP and the TC, entering the password again, setting the TC up again) all to no avail. No backup is possible anymore.

Mr. Zooot wrote:
Time Machine can not complete the backup "Time Capsule"
The image of the backup volume "/Volumes/Data/Pauls MacBookPro.sparsebundle" is not accessable (Error -1).
I also can not delete the backup image on the time capsule since it is read-only.
Sounds like you got this message earlier:
If so, see #C13 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
Offhand, I don't recall anyone not being able to delete one via the Finder (but most were only backing-up one Mac, so just erased the disk).
You may have to wait for that message to appear again (24 hours later), or you might try holding Alt/Option with the TM icon in the menubar, and select Verify Backups if it will let you.

Time Machine can't find external drive after installing Lion

Time Machine can't find external drive after installing Lion. I have a Laice 1 terabyte external drive that worked fine with Snow Leopard and now no show ... tried connecting it to front port and Mac Pro can't see it. Also lost Office,Quicken, and Final Cut Pro says: " You can't open application because Power PC apps are no longer supported" this is Not a good surprise!

Does the drive work when just directly connected? If so, have you prepped the drive?
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

Time Machine Can't Connect (anymore)

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