My time machine has a blinking amber light and it won't backup

I recently added a new network with AT&T My time machine is now blinking amber and I can't figure out how to fix it. I also have the 10.9.5 operating system....i didn't download it my computer did.......thats how smart I am. I am very computer stupid!

You need to reset the TC to factory and redo the setup.. perhaps get a tech in to help you.
Factory reset universal
Power off the TC.. ie pull the power cord or power off at the wall.. wait 10sec.. hold in the reset button.. be gentle.. power on again still holding in reset.. and keep holding it in for another 10sec. You may need some help as it is hard to both hold in reset and apply power. It will show success by rapidly blinking the front led. Release the reset.. and wait a couple of min for the TC to reset and come back with factory settings. If the front LED doesn’t blink rapidly you missed it and simply try again. The reset is fairly fragile in these.. press it so you feel it just click and no more.. I have seen people bend the lever or even break it. I use a toothpick as tool.
N.B. None of your files on the hard disk of the TC are deleted.. this simply clears out the router settings of the TC.
Setup via the airport utility.. the TC will be plugged into the new router .. by ethernet WAN port TC to LAN port AT&T router.

Similar Messages

Airport Utility cannot find Time Capsule and has a blinking amber light

I have a wireless router for my Wifi set up through AT&T (2WIRE). I am trying to add my TC to my existing network rather than establishing a new Wifi network with it. When I try to plug in my TC to set it up, Airport Utility cannot even find it. My TC has a blinking amber light also. I have tried reseting my TC, resetting my router, unplugging my router, unplugging my TC... I have the latest version of Air Port utility (6.2 (620.33)).

Connect the TC LAN port to the computer by ethernet.
If necessary do a reset of the TC so it shows up.
Put the TC into bridge mode.
Go to the wireless page, and set wireless to off.
Update the TC.. disconnect from the PC and plug WAN port to LAN port of the 2wire with ethernet.
The TC will now exist as a client in your network without creating a second wireless network.
You should also be able to access the TC via the airport utility.
I do think you should use the TC wireless since the 2wire does not provide a signal at 5ghz which is much faster than 2.4ghz.
So I do suggest you in fact do use the wireless but it is up to you.
It makes no difference having two wireless networks if they both connect back to the same router.
Do not use the "Join a wireless network" method.. ie no cable between the TC and 2wire.. that is poorest possible setup.

HT1178 My Time Capsule is only blinking amber. My computer tried to backup but I don't know how to tell if it did in fact back up the data. How can I tell if it backed up and why doesn't the light show green?

Just purchased a Time Capsule. Had to call Comcast to disable the WIFI and have internet connection. The time capsule though blinks amber and the Airport Utility shows blinking amber light and has a red circle with the number 1 in it. After connecting, my computer tried doing a backup for the first time and it appeared that it was backing up and finished although I don't know how to check to make sure that it did backup. How do I check and shouldn't the light on the time capsule be blinking green and the airport utility show green?

TM will show it has done a backup.. Look at the info.. when was the backup completed??
If you want more details install the widget.
A1 here.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
The time capsule though blinks amber and the Airport Utility shows blinking amber light and has a red circle with the number 1 in it.
There is an error.. probably trivial.. firmware update, default password..
Open the airport utility and find out what the error is.
Simply click the TC and see status in the summary page.. it will list all the errors and what you should do.. fix or ignore them. ie this TC has an error.. default password.. I chose to ignore.. when I "fix" the problem the LED goes green.
Here is additional TC.. it is blinking amber with faults.
Click the fault. eg default password.
You can ignore or edit .. if you click edit it will take you to the full setup where you can change the settings.
I ignored my errors and now it is green..

My airport express has a blinking yellow light and is not working. I have tried resetting it a few times, to no avail. My airport utility on my desktop detects it and will attempt to connect. However, after a few moments it says "An unexp

My airport express has a blinking yellow light and is not working. I have tried resetting it a few times, to no avail.
My airport utility on my desktop detects it and will attempt to connect. However, after a few moments it says "An unexpected error occurred Try again."
I'm running Mavericks on a 24-inch 2007 mac, 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, OS X 10.9.3 (13D65). The Airport Express is model A1264. I connect to it via an Airport Extreme with 7.6.4.
Thanks in advance.

I have the same problem with my airport express – a blinking yellow light and it is not working. I have tried resetting it a few times.
My airport utility detects it and try to connect. However, after a few moments it says "An unexpected error occurred Try again.
Airport Express is model A1143
And I have tried to connect with iPhone - same same.

I recently bought an Airport Express and connected it to my TimeWarner modem. Am able to surf the internet using my MacBook Air, iPad, and Apple TV, but the AirPort Express has a blinking amber light. How could I change it to a green light?

I recently bought an Airport Express and connected it to my TimeWarner modem. Am able to surf the internet using my MacBook Air, iPad, and Apple TV, but the AirPort Express has a blinking amber light. How could I change it to a green light?

The following may help: Wi-Fi base station: Understanding and resolving a blinking amber status light

Airport Express won't connect to network, blinking amber light, and "unexpected error occurred."

I have two aiport expresses - both have the problem. Both continue to have a blinking amber light, when I go through all the setup activities, after completing the factory reset multiple times, I simply get "An unexpected error occurred."
In fact after I do this, my laptop has issues connecting to the network. I have Verizon Fios, not sure if that means anything.
Haven't seen this covered in any of the troubleshooting materials; they just keep going to factory reset to solve all problems, which I've done several times with each device to the same end.
Any ideas?

Hi - You can install 5.6 on Mountain Lion but it is tricky - here are instructions from a post by guru Bob Timmons -
The workaround is to use a utility like Pacifist to manually extract the application and then manually install it in the Utilities folder - see this link:
http://www.macworld.com/article/1167965/mountain_lion_and_the_ancient_airport_ba se_station.html
Another workaround....if you have Time Machine backups.....is to back in time to locate AirPort Utility 5.6 and restore it to the desktop. Then drag it into the Utilities folder.

3 user profiles on mac book pro. cant see one account in time machine - has it backed up? and for other users ''no permission'' to open folders - i just want to know that stuff IS backed up (before attempting upgrade to lion)

We have 3 user profiles on mac book pro. want to upgrade to lion but want to be sure that all users are backed up to ext hard drive via Time Machine. When I go into Time Machine - I cant find anywhere my user account (1 of the 3) - loads of photos and documents. For other user accounts - if i go to open a folder i cant ''no permission'' is the message. All I want to be sure of is that there is a back up and for these 2 reasons I am far from sure.

famfran wrote:
When I go into Time Machine - I cant find anywhere my user account (1 of the 3) - loads of photos and documents.
Be sure they're not excluded in Time Machine Preferences > Options.
Also, if iPhoto is open while a backup is running, Time Machine may not be able to back up the changes in the iPhoto Library. It will "catch up" the next time, if it can.
For other user accounts - if i go to open a folder i cant ''no permission'' is the message. All I want to be sure of is that there is a back up and for these 2 reasons I am far from sure.
That's correct; one user, even an Admin user, doesn't normally have access to another user's files. You should see the same behavior if you try to look at their data on your Mac.
Log on as the other users (or have them do it) to see their backups.

Time Machine has stopped making backups

Time Machine has worked fine for me fore many months, the backup disk being a 1 TB external firewire drive.
But now Time Machine will not make a backup. I keep getting the same error message: "Time Machine Error. This backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires 88.7 GB but only 58.5 are available."
I thought Time Machine just deleted the oldest files on the drive to make the room it needs for continued backups. So why isn't it doing that now? How do I get it to go back to doing that?
Thanks for any help!
Tom

Tom Baker1 wrote:
My Time Machine backup disk is an external 1 TB firewire drive with only one partition, dedicated entirely to TM, and it backs up the two internal drives in my G5. One of these two internal drives has about 600 GB of data on it and the other about 400, so together they would be enough to fill the external Time Machine backup drive.
Yes, that's too small. Our "rule of thumb" is, TM needs 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing up. See #1 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
Now I have discovered that there is something wrong with the Time Machine backups as well. I decided to go into TM to see just how far back in time the backups go, but it will only allow me to go back as far as yesterday. It acts as though there are no backups older than yesterday afternoon.
That's probably correct; your TM disk is too small, and there's just not room for more. Here's the situation: A full backup has nearly filled the disk; something fairly large has been added or changed, and there just isn't room for it, in addition to the full backup.
The 88.7 GB it's requesting means it's trying to back up about 74 GB (it adds 20% for workspace, etc., on the TM disk).
This is getting stranger all the time. At this point should I just give up trying to fix the situation, erase the backup drive, and start all over again?
That probably won't help much, if at all. To confirm what's going on, Click here to download the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget. It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window. Navigate to the last backup attempt, then copy and post all the messages for that run here.
You need to do one of the following:
Get a larger drive, at least 2 TB.
Get an additional drive; use one for TM backups of one of your internal HDs, the other for a different app to back-up the other internal HD.
Exclude a lot of stuff from Time Machine (at least 300 GB).
Use a different app, such as CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper, to back up your internals to separate partitions on the 1 TB drive. These will be exact copies only; no previous copies of things you've changed or deleted.

Constant blinking amber light

Just got the Airport Express, and am trying to transition over from Linksys. I have a constant blinking amber light and its saying that Airport Express cant find the base station. Any help is much appreciated.

If you are replacing the Linksys with the new AirPort Express, I would suggest that you start by performing a complete power recycle of all of your networking hardware. Please check out the following AirPort User tip for details.

I have an Airport Extreme Base Station and have recently upgraded to Mountain Lion. Now airport utility won't work with my base station so I bought a Time Capsule. For the life of me I can't make the substitution work and only see a blinking amber light.

I have an Airport Extreme Base Station and have recently upgraded to Mountain Lion. Now airport utility won't work with my base station so I bought a Time Capsule. For the life of me I can't make the substitution work and only see a blinking amber light. Can anyone who has made this change offer some advice?

apikoros wrote:
The Utility transferred all of the AE's settings, so I still have to change the password, which leaves me with only 2 other questions, I think:
1) I assume it's just a matter of using the Utility, entering a stronger password and checking for it to be remembered in Keychain Access. But do I have to change the password for each individual unit-- the TC, the Extreme and both Expresses-- or will changing it just for the TC alone work for the entire network?
Resetting the password you will need to do for each device... the utility cannot even see those old units.
So you will have to do it for each one.. think it through.. because as you change passwords the others will lose connection.. so start from the express which are wireless extending .. change those first.. and go back up the chain.. as each one changes it will drop off the network.. until you reach extreme and change that. Then you might need to reboot the whole network to get everything talking again. If something goes wrong.. just pluck that one out of the mix and plug in ethernet.. reset and redo the setup. That is my preferred method anyway.. do everything in isolation one by one. By ethernet and then nothing goes wrong.
2) Who's the treasonous SOB who spilled the beans to you about the ICBM in my back yard?!?
N.Korean hackers.
[Edit] Whoops-- one more question: I want to partition the TC's disk, but Disk Utility doesn't see it. What do I need to do?
You cannot partition a network disk. And apple provided no tools for it in the TC itself. You can pull the disk out and partition it but that voids your warranty. (although done with care who is to know).
Look at Q3 here.
http://pondini.org/TM/Time_Capsule.html
Mixing TM and data on the TC is worth planning carefully. They don't necessarily sit happily together.

First time startup- Blinking amber light. Not sure what to do.

So I just got my airport express and when i first started getting the airport utility downloaded for windows xp, i used my modem (time warner ubee modem) ethernet cable and all but I am just getting a blinking amber light. I don't know if it hasn't configured if I need to wait longer for to initally start. I am kind of derp when it comes to networking, so..

A persistent, flashing amber light indicates that any of the several potential conditions may require your attention:
The base station has not yet been configured because it is new, or the reset switch has been set.
You have selected a security configuration that is not recommended.
One of several other conditions, such as a disconnected Ethernet cable or invalid IP address has been detected.
(ref: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305101)
If you run the AirPort Utility, it will show an amber circle on the summary page next to the area(s) causing the problem. Click on this amber circle and it should provide an explanation. Please post back your findings.

Why do I get a blinking amber light on my Airport Time Capsule?

I use 2 different time capsules, in different locations, on my Time machine. Why is the light blinking amber? Thanks. Korrigane

Open Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > AirPort Utility
Click on the Time Capsule icon, then click directly on the amber dot
Another window will open to tell you why the Time Caspule light is flashing amber, along with suggested actions to remedy the condition

Trying to resolve a blinking amber light on my Time Capsule. The problem is i don't see the airport utilities under Apps/Utilities..any ideas?

trying to resolve a blinking amber light on my Time Capsule. The problem is i don't see the airport utilities under Apps/Utilities to try and reset..any ideas?

AirPort Utility should be here: Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > AirPort Utility
If it is not there, you can download it from here:
http://support.apple.com/downloads/#airport
Temporarily, connect an Etherent cable from your Mac to one of the LAN <-> ports on the back of the Time Capsule
Open AirPort Utility - Click Manual Setup
Click directly on the word Status (2nd line) and a window will open to explain why the Time Capsule is complaining along with suggested actions to remedy the issue

Airport Express 801.11b/g and the neverending, unconfigurable blinking amber light

Gather round and let me tell you a tale. Once upon a time I bought an airport express 801.11b/g and I was very happy to use it for airtunes, extending a wi-fi network and the wireless printing capabilities. One day, it beagn flashing a scaaaary amber light. The base station stopped showing up in my airport utility 5.6 as well. The only way to get it to show up, was to hard reset it, and lose all the configurations I once enjoyed happily. After the hard reset, It would show up in the utility, and I would reconfigure it to do all its cool things it once did, and it would restart. But sadly, after restarting the blinking amber light came on a again. It would also not show up in the utility unless I hard reset it again, and the same thing happened over and over and over until I felt like pulling my hair out.
I decided to get another airport express a few months later, ultimately deciding that the unit must have just been defective. Bad luck. But - the second unit literally went through the SAME EXACT THING. Worked for a while, then onto the blinking amber light- hard reset- reconfigure-blinking amber light thing. Over and over and over. Just like the first one. The end.
So - either Im missing something totally fundamental or I had the misfortune of getting two defective units in a row. Both were bought used from different places, and worked "fine" for previous owners. Am I corrupting these things or what?
I have spent literally hours trying all the resets, configuring "workarounds" and nothing works. For both of them.
What do I do with these two devices? I don't need two shiny white paperweights.
Please advise,
Thanks.

Yes. It seems an integral part of the set up process though, you don't have to seperately configure the airport do you?
My wireless security is WPA/WPA2 Personal. When I go through the standard network set up, it automatically enters my wireless security settings. So it doesn't really seem to give an option to specifically set that option on the airport if that makes sense?
I did go through maunual mode to try that with the same result:
If I'm using the airports own network and connect to the wifi, no security, then I'm getting airtunes from my macbook. Of course this means it's plugged into my router via ethernet which isn't any use to me as I want it in my kitchen, and would rather not limit my apple devices to b/g when I have a decent N router, and would also mean running a huge ethernet cable across my house!
The seller has said it worked for him but he's not up to scratch on his tech, so if I'm sure it's malfunctioning he'll refund. Obviously this is great news and he seems like a very nice guy so I want to be certain it's not me malfunctioning before I send it back!
So in summary I have it functioning on it's OWN network:
Wireless mode: Create a wireless network
Wireless network name: Apple Network XXXXXX
etc
Once 'wireless mode' is switched from 'create a wireless network' to 'join a wireless network' I select my current WiFi, security and password, checked the TCP/IP settings all good. Select 'Update'. Get the warning that device and network will be temporarily unavailable am I sure I want to continue. Then it goes through the same as before, says it's succesful, restarts to flashing amber with no way of accessing it unless I hard reset.
Thanks for the help so far...

After upgrading to 10.7.2 Time Machine has failed

Hi everybody,
After upgrading to Lion 10.7.2 Time Machine has failed and won't mount the Time Machine drive.
I use a WD My Book Studio LX for my Time machine and also have a smaller WD My Book daisy chained through it in to the iMac with 2 partitions.
Both of the partitions on the My Book are loading fine and the Studio LX Drive is on and functioning ... the light is blinking away like a good'un ... but the drive won't mount on to the Desktop.
Has anyone else experienced this or have any possible solutions for it?
Thanks
Simon

I znever realized that you need to add firmware updates, since Apple sells this but doesn't provide any instruction or information on use. I had my WD external since about May and just looked into adding necessary firmware. This was my second drive and was not aware of this necessary upgrade. If failed to recognize my drive so I contacted Westen Digital and after a series of emails they said sorry but Lion is not supported! I was dumbfounded and in disbelief. They tried to
Get me to upgrade to another model but didn't tell me about any cost. I called the Apple store where I purchased it and talked to. Manager who brought on the phone a genius. He told me he has one and it does work with Lion! He walked me through adding the firmware and there you go Apple knew more than the Tech support at WD! I am hoping someone at Apple will read this and contact WD management and tech support to get their act together.
Regards,
Barry

My time machine has a blinking amber light and it won't backup

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