Time Capsule icon remains on desktop

Hi,
On my iMac, the TC capsule is only visible during backups (or after I entered the Time Machine). It disappears automatically as soon as the backup is made, and only appears again when the next backup is to be made.
On my wife's MacBook, on the other hand, the TC icon remains on the desktop after the first backup of that day. Several times an hour, the MacBook seems to want to check if the TC volume is still present (which my iMac doesn't do).
Is there a way to make Time Capsule / Time Machine clear that I only need to see the TC icon when backups are made? And that there's no need to poll the TC volume every 10 or 15 minutes or so?
BTW: we are talking about 1 and the same Time capsule used by both the iMac and the MacBook.
Any help would be highly welcomed.
Thanks
J.

Amenhotep,
I believe the TCs icon is there because you have manually mounted it once before. When the dialogue box opened asking for a password you clicked "Remember password in my keychain".
Try the suggestion in the second paragraph below...
*Authentication Issues* (For Time Capsule / AirDisk Users) #
Open your Keychain and select "login" from the Keychains pane in the top left. Highlight "Passwords" in the Category pane from the lower left. Sort all the items by Kind. Note everything labeled "Airport...". How many do you have listed? There should only be one "Airport base station password" for each base station that you have active. Also, there should only be one "Airport network password" for each network you have created. If there are more than these, then delete all but the ones with the most recent Modification date.
Also you may see an item with the name of your Time Capsule. It will have a little blue "@" icon and the KIND will be "Network Password". This Keychain item is only created if you have physically connected to your Time Capsule via the "Connect As..." function in the Finder window. Delete this entry. It will be recreated next time you manually mount your Time Capsule.
Now, go to the Desktop and Ctrl-Click the Time Capsule icon. A contextual menu will appear. Select "Eject". The TC icon will disappear. If you MUST mount the drive again in the future, do not select "Remember password in my keychain" and remember to manually Eject it when you are done.
Let us know if this resolved your issue.
Cheers!

Similar Messages

Updated OS & now Time Capsule icon isn't showing up on desktop

Just finally upgraded to 10.5. Now my Time Capsule icon isn't showing up on my desktop. Light is green on TC and I can navigate to it through Macintosh HD folder, then shared devices. I just used it as an additional external hard drive at this point. How do I get the icon to reappear. I already updated Airport too.

cybergroupie wrote:
my Time Capsule icon isn't showing up on my desktop.
Presuming you mean the volume of the Time Capsule's internal disk, mount that, open the Accounts panel of System Preferences, authenticate by clicking on the lock if it's "closed", select your account, select the "Login Items" tab, then drag the icon of that drive to the login items list.
Note that this will cause a window of that drive to appear each time you log in. If you search these discussions, you may find some older threads that discuss ways around that.

Time Capsule Icon No Longer Appears on Desktop

Two weeks ago I had AT&T U-verse cable, internet, & phone installed. As part of that installation they installed an AT&T router/wireless combination. The ethernet cable that was previously connected to Time Capsule is now connected to the AT&T device. There is no longer any ethernet connection to Time Capsule. The Time Capsule icon still appeared on my desktop and I manually performed back-ups from my Windows applications to Time Capsule. Time Capsule went from displaying a constant green light to displaying a flashing yellow light. That worked for several days. After about a week of that there appeared on my screen a 'wizard' of some sort recognizing the status of Time Capsule. It said this 'wizard' would eliminate the flashing yellow light. I followed the steps through the 'wizard' and at one point the flashing yellow light turned to constant green. There were a few more steps in the 'wizard' and when it was finished the flashing yellow light reappeared. The next time I tried saving files from Windows I could not connect to my w: drive, and the Time Capsule icon no longer appeared on my Mac desktop. I went into Airport Utilities and there is a box checked that should display the icon properly. Any ideas what's happening? How do I restore Time Capsule so I can back-up my files. Thank you.

Welcome to the discussions!
I don't have 10.6.1 yet, but have noticed this happens very occasionally on my MacBook Pro, but not on my iMac. Simply resetting Time Machine on my laptop has done the trick.
Open System Preferences
Click on Time Machine
Click your Time Capsule to highlight it
Click Use for Backups
If that does not do it then delete the "com.apple.TimeMachine.plist" file. It's located as follows:
Macintosh HD > Library > Preferences
Restart your computer
Then perform the same steps as above to setup Time Machine again.
The resets will not affect any of your backups.

Time Capsule Icons Concern

Hello, I have a question with the different Time Capsule icons that show up on The Desktop, in the Finder Sidebar, and in Time Capsule preferences.
They change constantly. Should I be concerned with it?
Could someone tell me what they all mean?
One looks Greenish and has the Time capsule arrow on it,
Another is Light Blue and has three people,
And another that is Aqua Blue and has the AirPort logo on it
Forgive me for not using specific terms but i don't know the names.

One looks Greenish and has the Time capsule arrow on it, > Time Machine usage for backup
Another is Light Blue and has three people, > Shared device
And another that is Aqua Blue and has the AirPort logo on it > wireless connection

What does this error message mean? "An unexpected error occurred (error code -6584). It arises when I open my Time Capsule icon.

I had a problem when downloading iTunes 11.1 and had to clear my disc and rebuild it from Time Capsule. Thats when I learned that Time Capsule stopped backing up back in January. So now I keep looking to see if Time Capsule is backing up but whenever I open the Time Capsule icon i get this error message. What does it mean and how can I fix the problem?

The backup is corrupted in some way.. you need to verify it.
The error is common enough but there seems to be a range of solutions.
Read the thread here.. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3123920?tstart=0
Look particularly for the posts by Pondini.
And check his troubleshooting for methods of doing things like verify.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
A5

Show Time Capsule icon in dock

I removed the time capsule icon from the dock by mistake. How can I reinstall it? (in addition to the one on the menu bar at the top!)

Thanks a lot. I tried this before but must have done it too quickly. Slow dragging did the trick!

Time Capsule Icons

What do the time capsule icons mean? when you click on change disk.
One has the symbol of the arrow moving counter clockwise and the other looks like three little people?

Yes, I am wanting to know what these are as well. Anyone know?

2 Time Capsule Icons In Finder

I was having problems connecting to the internet and called AppleCare. They had me reset my time capsule and set it up again from scratch. All was well last night but this morning when I woke my iMac up there are now 2 Time Capsule icons in the Finder. One looks like the normal TC icon and says Mac server and the other looks like a PC and says PC server. Anyone know what's going on? This thing worked flawlessly until yesterday.

honestly I went through the settings on the TC and was not able to find anything that would specifically effect windows SMB filesharing. My thought is that it, by default, has that particular protocol enabled. From looking around the other forums, it appears that other users are having PC servers popping up when networked with other Apple devices (computers specifically). My thought is that it is a small "bug" in leopards expanded Windows networking abilities. Many people claim to not have had the issue with older Mac OSX versions and that it only arose when upgrading to leopard.
Since the Macbook is not here right now for me to experiment, and my TC does not show up as a windows server, perhaps give a try at disabling SMB file sharing in the Sharing preferences pane. If the PC Server portion of the TC disappears than we know it is Leopards SMB sharing that causes this. if you network with other windows computer though you will want to re-enable this.
The fact that all SMB enabled apple devices don't show up on other Macs as PC servers indicates to me that it is likely a bug (either all or none should show up), as my MacPro does not show up as a PC server on the Macbook.
Go figure. At least this isn't terribly intrusive (maybe just a little ugly to have that blue screen of death lingering in the finder sidebar!)

How can I make the Time Capsule Icon stay on my desktop?

I just replaced my old Airport Extreme and aging external drive with a new Airport TC. The upgrade coulen't have been easier. Here's my question. I occasionally want to access the TC as in external drive so I would like the TC icon to appear on my desktop all the time rather than appearing only when the Time machine is running. Is there a way to do this? I'm running all the latest software / firmware. Thanks and I know there have been some similar threads but they were pretty old.

Open System Preferences (gear icon on the dock)
Open Users & Groups
Click the Login Items tab (next to the Password tab)
Click the + buttton at the bottom of the list
Use the Finder interface to locatet the Time Capsule drive and open it on the desktop
Click Add
Now the Time Capsule drive....named "Data", unless you have renamed it, will mounta and appear on the desktop when your Mac starts up.

Missing Time Capsule Icon

I'm using a time capsule to access my network with my iMac (10.4.11). The TC icon is no longer visible on my iMac desktop unless I boot in safe mode. What's going on and how can I get the icon back under normal boot?
Thanks

This is typical Yosemite.. please confirm OS on Pro and Air.. Yosemite, has the network ability of a pair of tin cans with wet string. (that dried and snapped).
The odd thing of course is the MBP is on the internet.. but perhaps just too stupid to figure out the local network.
So here is the first few things to try.
1. Factory reset the TC.. sounds odd when it is working already .. but please do the setup with the computer that is having the most trouble.
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.
2. After a reset it should suddenly show up as new device.. please run the setup utility from the pro.
Use short names, no spaces and pure alphanumeric. eg TCgenx and TCwifi. Base station and wireless names respectively.
3. Use WPA2 Personal security only. Use pure alphanumeric mixed case and numbers password.
4. If you have issues plug in by ethernet.
5. Set ipv6 in network preference for wireless and if used, ethernet. to link-local only.
Tell me how this goes.. if it works in the pro you can then pick it up in the Air etc.

S.O.S. - The case of the missing TIme Capsule icon

I am trying to connect my MacBook Pro to a local network.
Our Macbook Air, iPad and three iPhones all have WiFi. No problem.
My Macbook Pro has solid black radiating bars in the main menu. In Airport Utility, it shows the "Internet Globe" with a green circle below. Below that, however all I get is a spinning wheel. At the same time, the Macbook Air shows the icon of the time capsule with a green circle below.
Is there a setting I am missing? Some said to turn off Mac Access, but I do not know where to do that. In System Preferences, Wi-Fi is green, and it says WiFi is connected.
I ran all of the maintenance (rebuilt Directory, optimized the drive, weekly/monthly scripts, etc) All of the hardware checks out.
Has anyone had this happen? Help would be greatly appreciated.
Paul Kirtley

This is typical Yosemite.. please confirm OS on Pro and Air.. Yosemite, has the network ability of a pair of tin cans with wet string. (that dried and snapped).
The odd thing of course is the MBP is on the internet.. but perhaps just too stupid to figure out the local network.
So here is the first few things to try.
1. Factory reset the TC.. sounds odd when it is working already .. but please do the setup with the computer that is having the most trouble.
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.
2. After a reset it should suddenly show up as new device.. please run the setup utility from the pro.
Use short names, no spaces and pure alphanumeric. eg TCgenx and TCwifi. Base station and wireless names respectively.
3. Use WPA2 Personal security only. Use pure alphanumeric mixed case and numbers password.
4. If you have issues plug in by ethernet.
5. Set ipv6 in network preference for wireless and if used, ethernet. to link-local only.
Tell me how this goes.. if it works in the pro you can then pick it up in the Air etc.

Time Capsule gives internet to Desktop but not Macbook....

Ok wizkids i am in need of your help.
last night we had a storm and it knocked all our power out and when it came back on the internet was down, i went all gun-ho assuming i could fix it messing with time capsule and my modem, no luck. a few hours later the internet is back (could see this on the modem) but Time Capsule was no longer doing it's job to send my Mac Book Pro its beautiful internet.
So here is what i have, Cable modem, to 1tb time capsule, time capsule connected to my dell desktop running XP.
I current have internet on my desktop, provided by the time capsule and can also wirelessly connect to time capsule and its files via my mac book pro, but no matter what i seem to do, i cant seem to get it to connect to the inernet via time capsule.
im wondering if it has anything to do with the DHCP settings, and what i need to enter in that section or the router, ip address areas (currently on automatic so nothing has been manually entered...)
any help would be hot.
thanks

This is the AirPort Graphite and Snow forum. I suggest you post in the Time Capsule forum if you want more specific help.
For what it's worth, here is how I see your situation.
Since you have working Internet on the Dell, the correct settings for acquiring an IP address from your ISP are already present, either in the Time Capsule or in the Dell. If it is the Dell that has acquired the Internet IP address from your ISP (i.e., an address other than 10.0.1.x), the same TCP/IP settings (DHCP, PPPoE or Manual) that the Dell has been using should be used instead by the Time Capsule. If DHCP, the accompanying non-automatic fields (e.g., DNS servers, client ID) might or might not need to be filled in. If PPPoE, the account name and password would need to be filled in.
The Time Capsule should be configured to share a single IP address. Both client computers should use DHCP as their TCP/IP settings (with accompanying fields blank), the Dell in its Ethernet settings and the MacBook Pro in its AirPort settings. The IP address that they acquire from the Time Capsule should have the form 10.0.1.x.
If the Dell has been acquiring the Internet IP address, the modem might need to be unplugged from power for at least 5 minutes before the Time Capsule can acquire it instead.

Time capsule not showing on desktop

Title pretty much says it. I have Connected Servers checked in the Finder Preferences and other servers show up.

Are you using Mavericks?
Have you reboot the TC or reboot the network.. things often work after a network refresh.
Do you run the TC with SMB names? If not please reset the TC and change all naming to conform.. If you did not know, Mavericks has changed to SMB networking by default.
SMB names should be short, no spaces and pure alphanumeric. Your computer name should also conform.
Manually mount the TC.. and force it to AFP.
In Finder, use Go/Connect to server.
AFP://TCname.local
Where you replace TCname with its new short name. And use the domain, which is local by default. especially if your computer ls not directly linked to the TC and it may have a different domain.
I recommend to people now to ensure ipv6 is set correctly on all the network adapters on your computer.. for normal use it should be link-local.. and the TC itself is link-local.
Run the netstat scan in network utilities.
This will help you find the TC.
Then if you still have issues, open terminal and ping it.. ie ping TCname.local
The other alternative is to mount it by IP address. But that is only usable where the TC does not move IP, so is router or set statically.
AFP://10.0.1.1 (default TC IP address.. replace with your TC IPaddress)
Don't forget to store the password when requested in your keychain.
You might still need to occasionally reboot the TC.. that is just a standard bug in the Mac OS.. / TC or airport router combo.

Problems accessing Time Capsule disk on Desktop

I'm having problems connecting to my Time Capsule (used as a NAS shared disk) from my Snow Leopard machine. (If it makes any difference) I don't use it for Time Machine backups.
If I click on the Time Capsule in Shared in Finder's sidebar it will access the disk and I can access the files on it OK. If I click on the Time Capsule icon on the desktop I get the following error message:
The alias "Time Capsule" can't be opened because the original item can't be found.
The only thing on the Desktop is the Time Capsule icon as a mounted disk, not an alias of it.
I also get this error message if I open a Finder window and go to Computer (the very top icon) in the sidebar and then try to open Time Capsule from there. I've also noticed that I can't drag the Time Capsule share from the desktop or Finder window into the Devices section of the Finder sidebar. It won't let me do this.
I have a Mac mini running Leopard and don't experience any of these problems. I can also drag the Time Capsule share from the desktop or Finder window into the Devices section of the Finder sidebar without any problems.
Is this a Snow Leopard bug? If not can anyone help?

I'm having the same problem since upgrading the Snow Leopard. There's another thread that discusses a possible solution but is not yet solved: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10115033
Message was edited by: Tak-Seng

Trying to Save a File on my Time Capsule

Can someone help me on how to save a file from my iMac to my TC?

Open Macintosh HD on your iMac and look for a Time Capsule icon under the SHARED heading on the left side of the window.
If it is not there, right-click in the left side of the window and then click on Sidebar Preferences. Make sure that there is a check mark next to Connected Servers under SHARED.
Once you see the Time Capsule icon, click on it and a folder will display in the area to the right. Double click the folder to mount the Time Capsule disk icon on the desktop. You may need to click "Connect As" at the upper right of the window and enter your Time Capsule device password.
You can drag/drop or copy/paste to the Time Capsule icon on the desktop.

Time Capsule icon remains on desktop

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for