Suggestions, Observations and problem with Time Capsule shares

*Some Observations*
The Time Capsule can take a long time to become active. This is especially true if using an extended or WDS network. I would suspect this is due to the negotiation between devices that it needs to do. I have on occasion believed it to be hung, only to find that after walking away for a bit it comes up. This also impacts devices showing up in the Airport utility.
Using a time capsule with one Airport Express B/G will work, but adding a second creates problems.
Extending a network with an Airport Express N seems to work well.
Best bet is to set up separate B/G and N networks and run your N network as N only at 5Ghz.
WEP provides no real security, so think of it as you would an open network.
*My Issue*
I am having an issue where the time capsule shares become unavailable. It is an intermittent issue, and I have been unable to identify a test case. This happens for devices connected over ethernet as well as wireless. The Time Capsule shows in the Finder list, but the volumes are not available. Connecting to them fails.
The device also appears in the Airport Utility list, but when clicking on Manual Setup, or guided set up, it causes a hang.
This results in Time Machine hanging when trying to initiate a backup.
I have also noticed that when this happens, the signal does start to get a bit flaky with "Roam (Beacons Lost)" messages. Wireless connectivity still seems to be very useable though. I can connect to other network shares through the Time Machine, but not to the shares on the Time Machine. The only way to recover from this is to power cycle the Time Capsule.
One thing I want to investigate more tonight is whether there are any issues with my keychain and old passwords in case there are multiple failed attempts in the mix that are doing something. Although I know of no lockout feature on the device.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. This is the second Time Machine, so I have seen this on two different devices. I am also seeing this issue across 4 different computers simultaneously, some via ethernet and some wirelessly. Time Capsule is 7.3.2

Hi,
I have pretty much the same problem, 1TB Time Capsule that works fine most of the time as a wireless router. Up till recently Time Machine backups just worked (as one would expect them to) wired and wireless. I went away for a week came back and now every time Time Machine invokes a back up process all of a sudden my wireless network goes down, Time Machine can no longer see the Time Capsule and all other devices (iphone / apple TV other non apple devices) no longer have connections (they see wireless but no pass through to the internet or each other).
I have tried resetting all sorts of stuff, re-deployed my network, changed IP / LAN settings to make it less complex, Yasu'd my mac, connected only via wires, cleaned out my keychain etc etc and still get the same problems and as per Chris's point airport utility also hangs and the only solution is rebooting the time capsule.
I am fairly frustrated with this! any suggestions / help would be gratefully accepted.
thanks
alex

Similar Messages

MacBook Air and problems with Time Capsule in 5GHz Radio Mode

We have our Time Capsule configured to 802.11n only (5 GHz). We've done this to work more efficiently in a particularly noisy wireless area. The problem is that the MacBook Air can't maintain a connection to it and when it loses the connection, the wireless interface seems to disappear from the Mac altogether - the wireless status indicator just shows an empty cone. The only solution is a restart. Sometimes it loses the connection after a couple of hours, sometimes within minutes, though it always goes eventually. All other machines on the network are fine, and switching the Time Capsule to 802.11n only (2.4 GHz) solves the problem, though there's a lot of noise at that frequency and our network performance as a whole suffers.
I know there's similar threads around dealing with the MBA and wireless issues (I've tried all the solutions vaguely related, e.g. deleting and recreating the wireless interface), though none that deal with this specific problem, which I'm convinced is caused by the radio mode of the Time Capsule.
All software / firmware is the latest:
MacBook Air 10.5.2 Wireless Card Firmware Veriosn Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (4.170.46.5)
Time Capsule Version 7.3.1
I was hoping the recent firmware updates would sort this... any one else running a Time Capsule in 5GHz mode with a MacBook Air?

I'm running my TC in 5ghz mode with my MBA. My original problem was the lack of signal strength coming from my AEBS caused the MBA to have a slow connection. There are a number of pipes in the wall that separates the two rooms where my MBA lives and the AEBS is.
So, I hard wired the TC to the AEBS and placed the TC in the room where my MBA lives most of the time. Now that the signal strength is really good I'm not having any issues.

Problem with Time Capsule after backup session

I have a problem with Time Capsule after a backup session. Our two Macs (on Maverick) loose connection with the station and the only thing that seems to help is unplugging the Time Capsule and starting it again! After the next backup session the same thing happens again. The Macs seem not to be able to hold on to the connection and continually loose it. The iPhones and iPads that we have (4 units) are not affected - it is the Mac Mini and Mac Powerbook that experiences this problem!
I would be grateful for your help!
Thor

This is standard Mac issues and has been a bug floating around since Lion.. it hits some people worse than others.. but once it starts it is awful hard to get rid of.
Just to confirm the connection to internet is not a problem?? Just the hard disk drops out?
I recommend you
1. Reset the TC to factory.. and start over with all new names.. short, no spaces pure alphanumeric.
TC name and wireless name/s should conform. By default the disk share name is data which is fine.
2. Mavericks has changed over from using AFP to SMB for network filesharing.. why Apple why??
This is unhelpful to say the least. Many many people are struggling with TC and being unable to mount the network drive.
So do it manually and force it back to AFP.
In Finder use top menu, Go, Connect to Server.
Type AFP://TCname or TCIPaddress (it must be the network name of actual TC.. or its IP address)
When the computer locates the resource it will ask for a password.. it is public by default.. supply your password or public and save it in the keychain.
3. Delete the existing TM setup and start over.. See A4 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
I cannot promise this will fix it but should reduce the problem to now and then.. rather than every time TM needs to backup.

Hi, I have the following problem with Time Capsule: La imagen del disco de copia de seguridad "/Volumes/Data/MacBook Pro de Carlos.sparsebundle" ya está en uso. Please your comments to solve this problem, i can't made a backup. Thanks.

Hi, I have the following problem with Time Capsule: La imagen del disco de copia de seguridad “/Volumes/Data/MacBook Pro de Carlos.sparsebundle” ya está en uso. Please your comments to solve this problem, i can't made a backup. Thanks.

Try Here > http://pondini.org/TM/Time_Capsule.html
Perhaps P 2 > Time Machine could not complete . . . sparsebundle could not be accessed. (Error 109).

Since I upgraded to 10.7.2 lion I have these problems with Time Capsule. What is the problem? thanks

since I upgraded to 10.7.2 lion I have these problems with Time Capsule. What is the problem? thanks

Unable to access disk image backup "/ Volumes / Time Capsule / iMac Admin. Sparsebundle" (error -1).
Then?????

Internet Problem with Time Capsule (Wi-Fi) and AT&T U-verse Motorola NVG589 (Bridge Mode)

I'm having a problem with my Internet connection. For some unknown reason it keeps cutting out every 5 min for about 5 seconds. The wi-fi signal doesn't drop or anything like that, just the internet connection stops working for a little bit and then its fine again (pages don't load, etc).
Here is my current set-up:
1. AT&T Motorola NVG589 - set to bridge mode as per instructions here http://www.dslreports.com/faq/17734 (followed instructions step by step)
2. Apple Time Capsule (latest model 2TB)
3. Motorola is connected to the Time Capsule through an ethernet cable.
I tried contacting AT&T and they just sent me a new Motorola router, I installed it, put it in bridge mode and still the same thing is happening.
I am thinking maybe there is some problem in settings or something. Airport Utility is showing everything in "green", no problems there.
Please let me know if anyone can help.

Ok, here is an update on how I decided to deal with the problem. I will include all of my troubleshooting step by step for easy reference.
1. At first I put the NVG589 into Bridge Mode and used the TC as the main wireless router. This didn't work as my connection kept dropping for no apparent reason.
2. Second, I tried to put the Time Capsule in Bridge Mode and connect it directly to NVG589. This didn't work as my connection would still lag out for 5 seconds about every 5 minutes.
3. Third, I bought an ASUS RT-AC87U Wireless AC2400 Dual-band Gigabit Router to try and substitute the TC in previous steps and see if it helps. Same problem persisted when I put the NVG589 into Bridge Mode and RT-AC87U as the main router as well as RT-AC87U into bridge mode and NVG589 as the main router. The problem was exactly the same as when I tried using TC initially so my conclusion was this is NVG589's fault of being not compatible with other wireless routers.
4. I looked around everywhere and came up with the only feasible solution possible (for me at least):
Currently I use NVG589 as my main wireless router. I works pretty well and even though it doesn't have the specs of TC or the ASUS router my WI-FI connection is pretty fast and stable. In order to have Time Machine wireless backups, I purchased a Western Digital My Cloud Drive that is connected directly to the NVG589. Everything seems to sync and work well together.
I know this is not the ideal solution most people are looking for. But it works for me. Patiently waiting for AT&T to start offering NVG599 (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r28967809-NEW-U-verse-Gateway-Motorola-NVG599-WI RELESS-AC-AC1600) in my area. Once I get my hands on it will report back on how it will react to all the steps above and hopefully work well with Time Capsule.
Shoot me any questions you might have. Hope this was helpful for some of you.

Complex Problem with Time Capsule and Network

I have setup an airport network based on a 500 gb Time Capsule which for about a year was working perfectly. Last days some problems came up. The network is shared to 2 different macbooks pro. The first macbook pro works perfectly, the internet connection is stable and fast. The other macbook works weird: Although it finds the network the internet speed is very slow and not stable. Also it can't backup on the time capsule as it used to do (msg: can't find the server). Ι have the same network settings for both the macbooks pro and I had several times restart and reset the time capsule.
Thanks in Advance
Costas

I suspect that you are using someone else's airport connection. That would let you access the internet, but not access your file server. go to the airport menu and make sure that you are using your airport connection.
If that does not work, does everything work well when the computer is within a few feet of the time capsule?

Wireless comm problem with time capsule or airport extreme using iMac G5

I did buy a Time Capsule and an iMac 20" G5 January 2009...Installed all the components and created a wireless network...MacBook, iPhone and iPod Touch connected perfectly...iMac connected but started to drop communications with Time Capsule...Safari, iTunes and other internet-access programs had problems to connect 100% with the web...After reviewing all the post here and "testing/trying" several parameters, I found out that you need to define a WPA/WPA2 password protection with more than 13 characters...FYI, Time capsule is configured using 802.11n (b/g compatible)...

Further to Bob's comments..
A Gen1 TC will be using marvel wireless chip and your 2008 and 2010 Macbook will use atheros and/or broadcom cards.. Just open your system profiler and look for info on the airport. We find the mixture of wireless chipsets especially older draft N and later N products can give very varied results.
The very fact you are linking at 270 and not 300mbps shows some reduction from theoretical max speed.. and really to get over 100mbps with any wireless you need perfect setup.. matched wireless chips etc.
Do a test uploading and downloading a file to the TC to see if the LAN speed is better than internet speed.
In reality I think you are doing especially well.. we see loads of people complaining about slow internet here who are getting less than 10% of the speed they get direct when routed through the TC. And on most occasions the limit in speed is not really going to affect what you do, as the real links to the internet are not that fast.

Problem with Time Capsule backup

My Time Capsule is a first gen (500 GB), and I recently upgraded to Lion on my iMac. It seems like right around the time I upgraded that I started having problems with Time Machine backups. They will complete, but then the disk does not eject from my desktop. I am running the Time Capsule buddy widget, and here's the log file:
Starting standard backup
Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/TimeCapsule
QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
Disk image /Volumes/TimeCapsule/Stefano.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
100.0 MB required (including padding), 174.27 GB available
Copied 2353 files (2.0 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
100.0 MB required (including padding), 174.27 GB available
Copied 1656 files (718 KB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Starting post-backup thinning
No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Backup completed successfully.
Waiting for Spotlight to finish indexing /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Waiting for Spotlight to finish indexing /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Stopping backup to allow backup destination disk to be unmounted or ejected.
Backup failed because the destination disk was ejected or disconnected unexpectedly!
You can see at the end where I ejected the disk manually.

I finally resolved this. However, I had to erase the entire backup on my 3tb and start with a new backup. I connected via hardwire to make it go faster. No problems now.

Printer Problem with Time Capsule

So here's The Problem. I have set up a complex network in our house. The internet comes from a phone line which is then plugged into a belkin N1 vision router. There is another wire coming out of the router and into a Time Capsule which broadcasts the internet, printing and file sharing around the house. We have three computers in the house: A windows XP desktop, a Macbook Pro, and a windows 7 laptop. Both laptops can connect to the network just fine, with wireless printing, but the desktop can connect to the internet fine, but when printing prints out junk. The steps i have taken to stop this are as follows:
Re-install drivers
install Bonjour
Install AirPort Utility
Restart computer, and printer
change various wires in the network
i know its a long question but i need help, PS the printer is a photosmart 8150

Hi djmaq,
Your English is fine and easy to understand.
I am experiencing the same problem with a Vista PC and a Epson RX595 connected directly to a TimeCapsule. It started printing the page, stopped halfway through, and then finished printing the page and started printing MANY other pages with just "hieroglyphics" in random spots. I had to pull out the pages and cancel the print job.
I'm going to work on it more this weekend, but if anyone has similar experience and has successfully found a resolution, it would be greatly appreciated.

Problem with Time Capsule recognizing three USB hub hard drives at one time

I attached three external drives to my Time Capsule using a USB hub, but it only wants to recognize one drive at a time. I know that all three work individually with Time Capsule and the USB hub, because when I turn off the two other drives the third appears. I can turn these on and off sequentially, and all are individually recognized, but only one at a time. Does anyone know what I would need to do to get Time Capsule to recognize all three drives running simultaneously on the network? I turned Time Capsule on and off, to see if it would then recognize the three drives, but it didn't help. Could the hub be the problem, that it is underpowered? I do have an AC adapter on it. Any help would be appreciated.

I have the same issue and would love to know if you resolved it with a powered USB hub. Otherwise, i may just return to one external hard drive--though I will miss the double-backup idea. Anyone try the hub change?

Problem with Time Capsule used with an External Hard Drive (with it's own power supply)

I have a mid 2012 Macbook Pro with Mavericks installed. I have the latest Time Capsule (802.11 ac) with an external hard drive hooked up via the USB port. The external hard drive was taken from an older Mac desktop machine and is formatted correctly (Mac OS Extended Journaled). The external hard drive has it's own power supply and shows up fine when connected directly to my laptop.
For whatever reason I CAN see the hard (LAN Storage) when in AirPort utility but I CANNOT find or access the drive from anywhere within the Finder.
My finder settings are set this way:
My FInder appears this way, with the Time Capsule selected:
As you can see, the "Data" drive isn't displayed (it's not on the TIme Machine mounted drive either). The external drive "LAN Storage" isn't availailable anywhere either.
I've tried unplugging and restarting my Time Capsule and the External Drive with no luck.
Any advice?
Thanks.

Welcome to Mavericks.. and its new concept of network drives not just being hard to find like in Mountain Lion but totally invisible.
Apple changed over Mavericks to using SMB2 by default.. broken and flawed SMB2.
Change over to AFP by manually mounting the TC drives.
I strongly recommend the first thing you do is change the TC names to SMB standard.. that just helps.
Short, no spaces and pure alphanumeric.
So rather than the very Generic THE Airport Time Capsule.. you make it even more Generic with TC1 (each subsequent TC increment the number. )
LAN Storage is not a good name either for USB drive.. especially now that it is WAN Storage.. WStore for example.. but whatever makes sense to you.
The name itself doesn't matter. .following the rules, short no spaces and pure alphanumeric does. Everything, conforms.
Now in Finder.. Go, Connect to Server.
AFP://TC1 or AFP://10.0.1.1 (you can use either the name (now that it is proper network name) or the IP address .. replace with your actual name or IP).
The computer will find the resources and then ask you for a password.. this is required, even if default,, which is public.. so type in your password or public if you did not change it.
Store the password in your keychain.
The TC should now mount and all the resources on it be made available or visible.

Problem with Time Capsule password

Hi everybody.
I have a Time Capsule and I'm trying to perform the backup of my system with Time Machine. I have replaced my old Airport Extreme base with Time Capsule and I've configured everything so that the solid green light is turned on. Now I have my Time Capsule as an Airport Base and Internet is working properly.
Once I'm opening Time Machine, it asks me what drive I want to use for backup. I choose Time Capsule and then it's asking me an username and a password.
Please, could anyone tell me what username and password I have to write? I'm trying with my administrator one but it doesn't work. I looked everywhere but I'm not able to find the right UN and PW!
Please, help!
Thanks
Matteo

Matteo, you might have chosen to secure your disk with accounts rather than a password. To check this, go into the Airport Utility and double click Time Capsule on the left to enter manual setup, then click the disks icon on the top. Choose the file sharing tab and make sure "enable file sharing" is checked, then see if you have it set to "secure shared disks..." with Time Capsule password, rather than with accounts.
Be warned: if you change this setting, you will lose access to any files already on Time Capsule.

Problem with Time Capsule/Time Machine and MacBook Pro

I have run Time Machine against a Time Capsule for some time without problems. Suddenly I get an error message saing the disk in my Time Capsule is full. When entering Time Machine I can only see one "step" back in history despite the backup file using 650 GB on my Time Capsule.
My iMac that I havn't used much yet uses 46 GB and the disk in the Time Capsule is 1 TB so there should be plenty space... IF I undestand the file naming correctly...
Isn't Time Machine supposed to delete oldest backups when the disk is starting to get full? I hoped this system would be maintance free
As I can only see one step back in Time Machine I suspect some kind of error. Anyone have an idea what this could be?

Nick,
My first, suggestion is, mount the TCs hard disk and see how many disk images there are. There should only be one. If there are more than one, then at some point Time Machine lost track of its' previous backups and performed another Full Backup.
Alternatively, are you sure TM isn't backup up additional hard disks attached to your Mac?
Consider the following as it might give you some other ideas to explore.
*_Incremental Backups Seem Too Large!_*
Time Machine performs backups at the file level. If a single bit in a large file is changed, the WHOLE file is backed up again. This is a problem for programs that save data to monolithic virtual disk files that are modified frequently. These include Parallels, VMware Fusion, Aperture vaults, or the databases that Entourage and Thunderbird create. These should be excluded from backup using the Time Machine Preference Exclusion list. You will, however, need to backup these files manually to another external disk.
One poster observed regarding Photoshop: “If you find yourself working with large files, you may discover that TM is suddenly backing up your scratch disk's temp files. This is useless, find out how to exclude these (I'm not actually sure here). Alternatively, turn off TM whilst you work in Photoshop.” [http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1209412]
If you do a lot of movie editing, unless these files are excluded, expect Time Machine to treat revised versions of a single movie as entirely new files.
If you frequently download software or video files that you only expect to keep for a short time, consider excluding the folder these are stored in from Time Machine backups.
If you have recently created a new disk image or burned a DVD, Time Machine will target these files for backup unless they are deleted or excluded from backup.
*Events-Based Backups*
Time Machine does not compare file for file to see if changes have been made. If it had to rescan every file on your drive before each backup, it would not be able to perform backups as often as it does. Rather, it looks for EVENTS (fseventsd) that take place involving your files and folders. Moving/copying/deleting/saving files and folders creates events that Time Machine looks for. [http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/14]
Installing new software, upgrading existing software, or updating Mac OS X system software can create major changes in the structure of your directories. Every one of these changes is recorded by the OS as an event. Time Machine will backup every file that has an event associated with it since the installation.
Files or folders that are simply moved or renamed are counted as NEW files or folders. If you rename any file or folder, Time Machine will back up the ENTIRE file or folder again no matter how big or small it is.
George Schreyer describes this behavior: “If you should want to do some massive rearrangement of your disk, Time Machine will interpret the rearranged files as new files and back them up again in their new locations. Just renaming a folder will cause this to happen. This is OK if you've got lots of room on your backup disk. Eventually, Time Machine will thin those backups and the space consumed will be recovered. However, if you really want recover the space in the backup volume immediately, you can. To do this, bring a Finder window to the front and then click the Time Machine icon on the dock. This will activate the Time Machine user interface. Navigate back in time to where the old stuff exists and select it. Then pull down the "action" menu (the gear thing) and select "delete all backups" and the older stuff vanishes.” (http://www.girr.org/mac_stuff/backups.html)
*TechTool Pro Directory Protection*
This disk utility feature creates backup copies of your system directories. Obviously these directories are changing all the time. So, depending on how it is configured, these backup files will be changing as well which is interpreted by Time Machine as new data to backup. Excluding the folder these backups are stored in will eliminate this effect.
*Backups WAY Too Large*
If an initial full backup or subsequent incremental backup is tens or hundreds of Gigs larger than expected, check to see that all unwanted external hard disks are still excluded from Time Machine backups.
This includes the Time Machine backup drive ITSELF. Normally, Time Machine is set to exclude itself by default. But on rare occasions it can forget. When your backup begins, Time Machine mounts the backup on your desktop. (For Time Capsule users it appears as a white drive icon labeled something like “Backup of (your computer)”.) If, while it is mounted, it does not show up in the Time Machine Prefs “Do not back up” list, then Time Machine will attempt to back ITSELF up. If it is not listed while the drive is mounted, then you need to add it to the list.
*FileVault / Boot Camp / iDisk Syncing*
Note: Leopard has changed the way it deals with FileVault disk images, so it is not necessary to exclude your Home folder if you have FileVault activated. Additionally, Time Machine ignores Boot Camp partitions as the manner in which they are formatted is incompatible. Finally, if you have your iDisk Synced to your desktop, it is not necessary to exclude the disk image file it creates as that has been changed to a sparsebundle as well in Leopard.
Let us know if the above helped.
Cheers!

Problem with Time Capsule and Wireless Printing (Mac+PC Mixed)

I have a time capsule that is the wireless router for the house and my iMac and laptops use the wireless network beautifully. I installed a Dell 1320C color laser printer by connecting it to the usb port on the time capsule. The airport express utility did NOT recognize any USB printer connected to the time capsule. I was however able to wireless print from my iMac by asking the printer utility to find all available printers which it did and then installing the printer drivers (thanks google). So, while i cannot find my printer as being connected to the time capsule through the airport utility, i can find it through the print utility as a connection through bonjour and i can print just fine to it.
Now i installed bonjour on my laptops and found and selected the 1320c just fine. When i try to print through the laptops (pc), nothing happens and the file stays in the print queue.
I am willing to live with the first quirk as I can print wirelessly from the iMac. I however need help to print from the laptops.
Any suggestions?
thank you so much in advance
Mukund

Mukund SRINIVASAN wrote:
Once I connect the printer via ethernet to the time capsule, how do I
1) see the printer on my iMAC - what utility do I run etc?
It is connected to your network. Check your printer setup manual on how to set it up. Or go the the Dell website for printer support if you can't find your manual.
2) can i then run bonjour from my windows laptops and see the printer through the network?
Via ethernet, it shouldn't need Bonjour to set up.

Suggestions, Observations and problem with Time Capsule shares

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